
Book 



i'Ui:sknti:d hv 



tlbe "Qlnlvcrsits of Cbicago 

FOUNDED BY JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER 



ENGLISH ELEMENTS IN JON 
SON'S EARLY COMEDY 



A DISSERTATION 



SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY 

OF THE 

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE 

IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF 

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 



Department of English 



BY 



CHARLES READ BASKERVILL 



Reprint of University of Texas Bulletin No. 178 

Austin, Texas 

1911 



x^ 






OCT i3t»n 



^^<^/ 



PEEFACE 

Several years ago I conceived the theory that Jonson was a 
much more sympathetic student of English literature than has 
commonly been supposed. In studying the problem, however, I 
have become convinced that his indebtedness was less to specific e> 
works used as sources than to certain specific trends in English 
literature with which he was thoroughly in accord. The present 
study is an attempt to follow out that idea. In view of the mul- 
titudinous phases of Jonson's work, as of all Elizabethan litera- 
ture, it has proved convenient, even necessary, to limit my field, 
and the period of early comedies seems to furnish the best basis for 
the study. Not only do these plays form a fairly isolated group in 
Jonson's work, a group significant in the development of his pecu- 
liar literary powers and of his characteristic type of comedy, but 
they belong to a decade in English literature so decided and revo- 
lutionary in its trends that Jonson's relation to contemporary let- 
ters can be more easily tested in them than at any other period of 
his work. The closing decade of the sixteenth century, with its 
varied tendencies, its literary revolution, its plasticity, and its nice 
balance between free criticism and easy creation, offered a chance 
for the development of individual force such as perhaps no other 
like period of the drama offered, and yet scarcely allowed any 
writer to escape the impress of the time. 

Jonson's relation to the movements of English literature at the 
end of the sixteenth century is the primary problem of this study, 
though at the same time I have attempted to trace the trends in 
his work as far back as they are discernible. The general point 
seems fairly clear that Jonson actually studied English literature 
and used the work of predecessors according to the Renaissance 
formulge for imitation somewhat as he imitated Latin literature 
but less closely of course. Assuredly he was observant of the 
trends and conventions in English literature and readily utilized 
its types so far as they were suitable for comedy. It is my hope 
that I have presented enough evidence to throw some light on the 
relation of Jonson to his fellows and on the significance of literary 
trends for his work. 



iv Preface 

The Publication Committee of the University of Texas, who 
have been kind enough to publish this volume as a Bulletin of the 
University, have already waited patiently a year beyond the time 
when the work was to have been ready for the press, and, keenly 
as I realize the shortcomings and imperfections of the study, it 
seems imperative to close it. Indeed, under the conditions of my 
work, it is scarcely profitable to pursue the subject further. I 
particularly regret that much material which promised to be of 
interest for Jonson has been inaccessible to me, especially a num- 
ber of works not yet reprinted which are satirical in nature or 
deal with manners. Even in the case of a few writers like Lodge 
and Guilpin, I have been forced to quote from copies of the most 
interesting portions of their work made when the books were tem- 
porarily accessible to me. Moreover, in the literature at hand I 
have undoubtedly missed much that would add to the roundedness 
of this treatment; but the nature of the work, I feel, makes the 
omissions less significant than they would otherwise be, for with- 
out any hope of exhausting the subject, I have merely attempted 
to gather together sufficient material to illustrate the point of 
view. The possible influence, also, of classical and continental 
Eenaissance literature upon the types and conventions of English 
literature which led to Jonson, I have tried to weigh fairly, but, 
as I have naturally not been able to study this phase of the sub- 
ject closely, there must be many non-English parallels to Jonson's 
work with which I am unacquainted. In the main, however, even 
Jonson's classicism seems to me to be strongly colored by contem- 
porary attitudes, though I am aware that such a claim is, in many 
cases, not readily susceptible of proof. 

It has been difficult in handling the material to give due credit 
for all that has been borrowed. The volume is already so cum- 
bered with references and notes that I have deliberately avoided a 
multitude of references for such ideas as are generally current now. 
In the matter, also, of parallels to Jonson's treatment, though I 
have attempted to give credit whenever I have been aware that the 
material has been pointed out by others, the discovery of parallels 
has seemed to me so much less significant than the massing and the 
interpretation of them that I candidly confess I have not made 
any exhaustive search to learn whether each parallel which I have 
used is to be credited to some previous student. 



Preface v 

The fact that my material has been gathered from modern edi- 
tions of Elizabethan works has led to many inconsistencies. In 
titles and quotations I have tried to follow the various editors, and 
the result, which seems unavoidable, has been that the Elizabethan 
and the modern form jostle each other on the same line. There is 
much inconsistency, also, in the method of citing the sources of 
material. In the case of works accessible in only one edition or 
those easily referred to by the number of the satires, epigrams, 
sonnets, etc., I have not always been careful to indicate the edition 
from which I quote. Such are the satires of Marston and Middle- 
ton edited by BuUen, and Shialeiheia and the works of Davies 
edited by Grosart. But, when tlie reference is by volume and 
page, my practice has of course been to give the edition, especially 
with the first reference. For Jonson's works, unless it is other- 
wise stated, I have referred to the three volume Gifi^ord-Cunning- 
ham edition; and, as reference to this edition by act and scene is 
often hardly explicit enough, I have adopted the plan of giving 
also the page of the volume in which the play under consideration 
occurs. References to the quartos of the early plays are by line to 
Professor Bang's reprints in Materialien zur Kunde des alteren 
Englischen Dramas. 

In closing this study I wish to express my thanks to two persons 
to whom I am principally indebted. Prof. J. M. Manly has made 
a number of suggestions, which have proved of value to me; and my 
wife, Catharine Q. Baskervill, has not only borne a great part of 
the burden of copying, verifying, indexing, etc., but has also of- 
fered innumerable suggestions that have entered into the body of 
the work. Without her criticism the volume would have gone forth 
in a far cruder form. 

C. E. Baskervill. 

University of Texas. 
March, 1911. 



CONTENTS 

Chapter I 

jonson's literary ideals 

Jonson and the new movement in comedy, 1. — Usual view of his 
classicism, 1. — Point of view of present treatment, 2. — Scope of 
treatment, 2. — Jonson's personality, 3. — Absence of realism in 
his work, 5. — His statement of the requisites of the poet, 5. — 
Demand that poetry shall conform to the conditions of the time, 
7. — Eelation to his contemporaries, 8. — Variety in his work, 
9. — Influence of contemporary modes on his choice of material, 
9. — Illustrations from the tragedies and masques, 10. — From 
the comedies, 12. — Conclusion, 15. 

Chapter II 

THE ENGLISH TEMPER OF JONSON'S VS^ORK 

Jonson in relation to the broader movements in contemporary lit- 
erature, 17. — The humour comedies as one phase of the popular 
satiric movement, 17. — Classicism and the school of satire, 18. — 
Conditions of English life that gave rise to the new satire, 18. — -' 
Jonson expressive of the English temper, 21. — His lack of sym- 
pathy with romantic and courtly literature, 22. — His accoi'd 
with tlie spirit of English didacticism, 24. — Effect of English 
literature on his classicism, 84. — The fusion of classic and me- 
dieval English influences in his art, 26. — Aspects of his work that 
are peculiarly medieval, 29. — His technique that of the didactic 
school, 31. — Classical and medieval tendencies that made for 
formalism in art, 32. — Jonson's fundamental Anglicism, 33. 

Cpiapter III 

A study of humours 

The meaning of humour as used by Jonson, 34. — Jonson's imme- 
diate predecessors in the use of the term, 37. — The development 
of the use of humour in a figurative sense, 37. — Causes that re- 



viii Contents 

tarded this development, 39. — Connection of the humour com- 
edy and the morality, 40. — The prominence of the humour con- 
ception an expression of the increasing interest in the physio- 
logical sciences, 41. — Use of humour in its derived sense a native 
development, 45. — Humour as used by Fenton, 46. — The influ- 
ence of the Eenaissance idea of decorum on the native idea of 
humours in character portrayal, 55. — Wilson's conception of 
character treatment, 56. — Sidney's, 57. — Lyly and the treatment 
of humours, 59. — Gabriel Harvey, 60. — Greene, 62. — Nashe, 
63. — Lodge, 67. — The part of the character sketch in humour 
comedy, 68. — Jonson's immediate forerunners in the drama, 
72.— The "comical satires," 75. 

Chapter IV 

A TALE OF A TUB 

Date of A Tale of a Tub, 76. — Changes made in revision, 77. — 
Type of drama to which the play belongs, 80. — Characters, 80. — 
Type of plot, 80. — Plays similar in method of plotting, 82. — A 
non-dramatic use of the same type of incidents, 85. — Minor 
parallels between A Tale of a Tub and other plays of the period, 
86. — The title, 88. — Primitive character of the play, 89. 

Chapter V 

THE CASE IS ALTERED 

Date of The Case is Altered, 90. — Indebtedness to Plautus, 91.-- 
English influence, 93. — The character of Juniper, 94. — Onion, 
100. — Valentine, 101. — Jaques, 102. — Eomantic elements, 102. — 
Variety of elements in the play, 105. 

Chapter VI 

EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOUR 

Jonson's first comedy of manners, 107. — Classic affiliations, 107. — 
Neglect of incident, 107. — The gulls, 108. — Question of per- 
sonal satire in Jonson's work as illustrated by the treatment of 
the gulls, 120.— Bobadill, 122.— Cob, 130.— Brainworm, 132.— 
Young Knowoll and Wellbred, 135. — Kitely, 136. — Downright, 



Contents ix 

138.— Justice Clement,, 139.— The Elder Knowell, 139.— Criti- 
cal utterances of tlie prologue, 142. 

Chapter VII 

EVERY MAN OUT OF HIS HUMOUR 

Every Man out in relation to formal satire, 144. — Kinship to 
Every Man in, 144. — The induction and chorus, 146. — The part 
of Asper, 149. — Cordatus and Mitis, 157. — Macilente, 158. — 
Carlo Buffone, 170.— Shift, 180.— Clove and Orange, 184.— 
Brisk, 185.— Puntarvolo, 194.— Saviolina, 300.— Sordido, 203.— 
Fungoso, 205.— Sogliardo, 207.— Deliro and Fallace, 210.— The 
English tone of the play, 212. 

Chapter VIII 

CYNTHIA'S REVELS 

Allegorical and satiric character of Cynthia's Revels, 214. — The 
induction, 214. — Complex nature of the play, 217. — The four 
main lines of treatment, 218. — The court of love element, 218. — 
Parody of the duello, 233. — Influence of the mythological com- 
edy, 234. — The Arraignment of Paris, 236. — TJie Bare Triumphs 
of Love and Fortune, 237. — Lyly's mythological comedies, 
237. — Other mythological plays, 242. — The use of echo, 245. — 
Cynthia's Revels as a study of ethics, 246. — The influence of 
Aristotelian conceptions, 246. — Kinship between Jonson's play 
and the morality as illustrated in Magnificence, 249. — In Three 
Lords and Three Ladies of London, 253. — Jonson's grouping by 
fours, 258. — Kinship between the characters of Cynthia's Revels 
and those of the preceding play, 258. — Crites, 259. — Amorphus, 
264.— Asotus, 267.— Hedon, 272.— Anaides, 276.— The pages, 
278.— Moria, 279.— Argurion, 279.— Philautia and Phantaste, 
280.— The nymphs as a group, 281.— The palinode, 282.— The 
play expressive of Jonson's peculiar literary bent, 282. 

Chapter IX 

POETASTER 

The preponderating classic element in Poetaster, 284. — English 
elements, 285.— The induction, 286.— The prologue, 289.— The 
plot largely classic, 289. — Classification of characters, 289. — 



Contents 

Ovid, 290. — Albius and Chloe, 291. — The literary significance of 
Ovid's group, 293. — Tucea, 294. — Satire on players, 297. — 
Treatment of informers, 299. — Proportion of personal satire and 
literary allegory involved in the treatment of the intrigue 
against Horace, 303. — Demetrius, 305. — Crispinus, 306. — 
Horace, 308. — Virgil, 310. — Critical material in Poetaster, 
311. — Eelation to critical ideas of Chapman, 312. — Of Nashe, 
314. — Conventionality in Jonson's work and his tendency to 
symbolism, 315. 



ENGLISH ELEMENTS IN JONSON'S EARLY COMEDY 



CHAPTEE I 

jonson's literary ideals 

"When Jonson's Every Man in his Humour and Every Man out 
of his Humour appeared upon the stage in 1598 and 1599, a new 
era in the Elizabethan drama opened. Chapman, Dekker, Marston, 
Middleton, and Webster joined with Jonson in producing pure 
comedy. Even Shakespeare's work was influenced by the new 
movement. This change in dramatic mode and ideals we are justi- 
fied in associating with Jonson not only because his work was the 
strongest but because it was the most distinctive of the new school. 
His thoroughgoing reformation in the theme and the technique of 
the drama, his close approach to unity of mood and structure, give 
his ])lays the appearance of complete detachment from the hybrid 
forms of the drama that were struggling toward a more realistic 
comedy in which the study of manners should be more than a 
mere series of scenes in mystery, morality, chronicle, or romantic 
comedy. 

The source of the inspiration and power which gave Jonson this 
commanding place in the reform of the drama has justly been 
sought in his knowledge and love of classic literature. His work 
is larded with phrases and sentences drawn from the classics; 
many details of his plots have been traced to classic sources ; and, 
most important of all, his intimate acquaintance with classic 
m.odes of thought and expression has resulted in intellectual clarity 
and restraint as dominant characteristics of his work. But this 
has usually been interpreted to mean that Jonson owes everything 
to classicism, and it would not greatly overstate what has been a 
fairly common estimate of his place in the development of the 
Elizabethan drama to say that this classical training along with 
the originality of the man is responsible for the Jonsonian comedy. 
Such a view, of course, recognizes the fact that material for Eng- 
lish comedy must be furnished largely by English life, but it rates 
the influence of English literature upon Jonson as decidedly weak. 



2 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

Though this view of Jonson as deriving his inspiration, power, 
and literary material almost solely from the classics has been 
greatly modified in the last decade, we have not yet come to a full 
realization of his indebtedness to English literary men and English 
literary trends. It is only recently that Professor Spingarn's study 
of Eenaissance criticism has shown how greatly the classical stand- 
ards of literary excellence were modified in passing through the 
hands of various theorists, — modified by the very literature that 
the theorists were attempting to bring into conformity with classic 
ideals, — and how greatly indebted Jonson was for his critical stand- 
ards to the men who preceded him in the Renaissance.^ Recently, 
also, various English sources for Jonson's plays and masques have 
been suggested.- Undoubtedly many passages and incidents in his 
work are borrowed directly from English literature, and their 
value in understanding his development is great enough. But to 
my mind they are secondary in importance to the presence of 
a greater mass of conventional material showing the influence 
of English literary ideals and tendencies. In other words, 
there is something more English in Jonson's work than these 
isolated loans. It is accordingly the purpose of this study to 
indicate the value of English literature rather than Eng- 
lish life in the development of Jonson's comedy, to point out 
wherever possible the actual English sources of his work, but 
especially to show how conventional in the literature at the end 
of the sixteenth century was much of his material. Such a study 
will, I believe, reveal an influence of English literature on Jonson 
not so obvious as that of Latin literature but perhaps more per- 
vasive and universal. 

The period chosen as the basis of this study covers the years 
1597 to 1601. The plays which I have regarded as falling within 
the period are A Tale of a Tub, The Case is Altered, Every Man 
in his Huw.our, Every Man out of his Humour, Cynthia's Revels, 
and Poetaster. The choice scarcely calls for defence. These 

'^For Prof. Spingarn's views, cf. his Literary Criticism in the Renais- 
sance and the introduction to Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century. 
The very decided English tradition in criticism, which is of supreme im- 
portance for Jonson's early comedy, is discussed excellently in the intro- 
duction to Gregory Smith's Elizabethan Critical Essays. 

^Cf. Hart, Works of Ben Jonson; the editions of The Devil is an Ass and 
The Staple of News in Yale Studies in English; two papers by me in 
Modern Philology, Vol. VI, pp. 109 flf. and 257 ff.; etc. 



Jonson's Literary Ideals 3 

comedies represent the formative period in Jonson's career, the 
time during which he evolved and perfected his conception of the 
humour types. They stand, then, on the whole, not necessarily 
for what is most enjoyable or artistically greatest in Jonson's 
work, but for what is most distinctive. Even A Tale of a Tub 
and The Case is Altered, if I am right in regarding them as the 
earliest of Jonson's comedies, are extremely interesting as showing 
the influences to which he was susceptible at the opening of his 
career, when, before he had found his own field in satiric comedy 
dealing with the follies of the higher social classes, he was trying 
his hand, as Shakespeare had done earlier, in different types of 
comedy popular with Elizabethan audiences. What I hope to 
show is that in developing his characteristic type of play Jonson 
seized upon ideas and methods which had run through English 
literature almost unconsciously and yet with increasing strength, 
and that after his own fashion he brought them to consciousness 
and to the dignity of a type and formulated the laws of that type. 
Before proceeding to a minute study of these plays, however, or of 
the fashions and trends tliat molded Jonson's comedy in this early 
period, it seems to me advisable to take up at some length Jonson's 
relation to his age, his attitude to contemporary literature, and his 
general method of work, for we have to do with plays which, 
though they have fewest direct English sources, yet show the most 
pervasive flavor of English literary treatment. 

On the personal side, Jonson's broad experience of life, his dom- 
inant individuality, and his eagerness to give expression to self 
mark him as a typical man of the Eenaissance. In early life he 
served as common bricklayer, common soldier, and possibly com- 
mon strolling player. As a soldier we know that he displayed his 
aggressiveness, courage, and love of prominence. We know, too, 
from the tributes of Beaumont and various other literary men that 
at an early date Jonson's learning and spirit of dominance had 
made him a leader in the tavern gatherings of wits. Dekker in 
Satiromastix twits Jonson with his eagerness to be recognized as a 
literary dictator in tavern and playhouse, and with his willingness 
to fawn upon knights for favor. From a knowledge of Jonson's 
life and works we realize the measure of truth in these charges; 
but whatever excess of tact the tactless Jonson may have been 
guilty of, he actually did make his way into the most exclusive 



4 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

circles, come into contact with men of social and political promi- 
nence, and at the same time win a position of leadership in the 
world of letters. We are forced to recognize the strength amid all 
of his limitations to understand why the hostility of those whom 
he fought and scorned, the coarseness of his features and the un- 
gainliness of his figure, the lifelong poverty and the probable social 
crudeness of the man, the envy, pride, arrogance, or even im- 
pudence that he could not always restrain, did not prevent his 
winning recognition and disciples among the most envied of Eng- 
land's scholars and noblemen. The bricklayer ultimately found 
himself an important figure at the court. Insatiable in his thirst 
for knowledge, independent in liis literary and social standards, 
stubbornly insistent upon his own ideals, sternly rational in his 
judgment of life, direct and matter-of-fact in his gluttonous taste 
as in his ambition, undisturbed by qualms in his sensual enjoy- 
ment of wine and women, Jonson drove doggedly to the front, a 
master of life in all its phases, as were few other Elizabethans 
even. 

I have stressed the nature of the man to show not only that he 
will pretty certainly lead in whatever he undertakes, as he clearly 
does lead in the classicism of the Elizabethan or Stuart period, but 
that he will never stand aloof from the literary movements of his 
day. Jonson was first of all a student of books, and however dis- 
dainful might be his attitude toward the average man of letters in 
his time, however much he might stress his mission as a teacher of 
classic art, he was in the closest touch with all contemporary lit- 
erature. It was the life of the man to be in the midst of tilings. 
Let a type like the drama or the masque become popular, and he 
is almost certain to adopt it and exert all his powers to excel 
in it. In fact, the popularity of the classics among the cultured 
people of England in Elizabethan times largely explains Jonson 
and his connection with the classics, while his pride, his ambition, 
and his scorn of what is commonplace led him into an avowed in- 
dependence of English authors. But as a practical playwright 
eager to appeal to the men of his time, as an intimate of the 
gi'eatest living English writers, and as a critic who claimed con- 
formity to local conditions as the prerogative of the poet and 
dramatist, Jonson was likely in every phase of his work to be re- 
sponsive to the literary movements of his day. This is entirely 



Jonson's Literary Ideals 5 

consistent with his recognized position as leader in a new form of 
drama; it is even consistent with his desire to improve English 
literary art b}' an appeal to the art of the great classic masters, 
for such an appeal was but part of the Renaissance. 

Jonson's rich knowledge of life undoubtedly at times served to 
furnish him with material, as in much of Bartholomew Fair, and 
his belief in the value of English life for the work of the literary 
man is clear from many utterances. In the prologue to The 
Alclicmist he says : 

Our scene is London, 'cause we would make known, 
No country's mirth is better than our own: 

No clime breeds better matter for your whore, 
Bawd, squire, impostor, many persons more, 

Whose manners, now called humours, feed the stage. 

This is not to be interpreted, however, I think, as involving the 
question of a realistic treatment of life based on direct observa- 
tion. Such a thing was not a part of the Renaissance literary 
creed. In the second prologue to The Silent ^Yoman Jonson gives 
this warning: 

Then in this play .... 



. . . think nothing true: 

Lest so you make the maker to judge you. 

For he knows, poet never credit gained 

By writing truths, but things, like truths, well feigned. 

The principle is repeated in the court prologue to The Staple of 
News. In Timher, also, Jonson follows the old definition of a 
poet as one wlio "feigneth and formeth a fable, and writes things 
like the truth" (Schelling's edition, p. 73). The very definition 
indicates the absence of any ideal of realism; things like truth do 
not involve an exact imitation of life. Professor Spingarn has 
pointed out that this idea of the poet's function is as old as Plato 
and Aristotle, and was thoroughly fixed in the Renaissance (Lit- 
erary Criticism in the Renaissance, pp. 4 and 18). Sidney saw a 
weakness in history in that it cannot present the consummate type 
of vice or virtue but must be realistic, and Jonson told Drummond 
that he "thought not Bartas a Poet, but a Verser, because he wrote 
not fiction." 

What, then, is to be the source of the poet's material? The 



6 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

four requisites of a poet that Jonson adopts in Timber are: in- 
genium, or "goodness of natural wit" ; eaercitatio, or practice ; 
imitaUo, by which Jonson means, not imitation of life, but of 
those writers who have shown an understanding of life; and lastly 
lectio, which he translates "exactness of study and multiplicity of 
reading." Finally, "art must be added to make all these perfect" 
(pp. 75-78). There can be little doubt, I think, that whether or 
not this discussion of the requisites of a poet is merely a transla- 
tion of some undiscovered author, it represents Jonson's own views. 
The ideas were generally accepted.^ It is noteworthy that after 
endowment and practice, or training, Jonson finds the requisites 
of a poet to be a vast knowledge of books and a free borrowing 
from them. The poet may seek material anywhere so long as he 
unifies it, thus making it his own by his art. This is the essence 
of originality for Jonson. Of imitation Jonson says : "The third 
requisite in our poet or maker is imitation, imitatio, to be able to 
convert the substance or riches of another poet to his own use. 
. . . Not to imitate servilely, as Horace saith, and catch at 
vices for virtue, but to draw forth out of the best and choicest 
flowers, with the bee, and turn all into honey, work it into one 
relish and savor."- Of course imitation for Jonson as well as 
for other Renaissance writers means a coming into harmony with 
the literary instinct, the refined taste, the mode of thought, and the 

^Professor Spingarn has shown that much of what Jonson has to say of 
poets and poetry is borrowed from Buchler and Heinsius, and he suggests 
Buchler as the source of some details in the discussion of these requisites 
(Modern Philology, Vol. II, p. 452, n.). Miss Woodbridge points to Sid- 
ney, who w.ould entrust the "highest-flying wit" of the poet to the guid- 
ance of "art, imitation, and exercise" {Defense of Poesy, ed. Cook, p. 46). 
The points correspond to Jonson's except that Sidney omits lectio, or study. 
Miss Woodbridge suggests that both writers are indebted to Longinus 
{Studies in Jonson's Comedy, pp. 9, 10). These requisites for the literary 
man, however, were known in English criticism before Sidney. Wilson in 
The Arte of Rhetorique, 1560, (ed. Mair, pp. 4, 5) in telling "By what 
meanes Eloquence is attained", stresses "a wit, and an aptnesse" ; the 
store of knowledge derived from books; exercise, or practice, in addition 
to art; and finally imitation, which is defined much as Jonson defines it. 

-Of the requisites which Jonson mentions, imitation was the most 
widely treated in literature. Ascham's discussion of imitation in The 
Scholemaster is the most important in English, and the references that 
Ascham makes to other treatises furnish an excellent bibliography of the 
subject. Cf. Smith's notes to Ascham's discussion. Eliz. Critical Essays, 
Vol. I. In Cicero's De Oratore, Bk. II, chaps, xxi-xxiii, the same points 
are made in regard to imitation that Jonson makes, and the requisites of 
success in literary work appear incidentally. 



Jonson's Literary Ideals 7 

art generally of the master imitated. One sentence that I omitted 
from Jonson's discussion of imitation demands that the poet "make 
choice of one excellent man above the rest, and so . . follow 
him till he grow very he, or so like him as the copy may be mis- 
taken for the principal." But, if the phraseology of the passage 
on imitation does not clearly imply borrowing, that of the one on 
reading does. Jonson says that it is necessary for the poet in 
studying any poem "so to master the matter and style, as to show 
he knows how to handle, place, or dispose of either with elegancy 
when need shall be." Here Jonson stresses material and the 
handling of it as much as he does art.^ 

Nevertheless, Jonson is careful to protest against a slavish ad- 
herence to the art of the masters. Of Every Man out of his 
Humour he says in the induction that " 'tis strange, and of a par- 
ticular kind by itself, somewhat like Vetus Comoedia."^ Then he 
proceeds to a defense of innovation in poetry. Classic laws of 
comedy as we now ]iave them, he says, are the result of a growth 
and an accommodation, and the later comic writers who came 
after Aristophanes, himself a model, "altered the property of the 
persons, their names, and natures, and augmented it [comedy] 
with all liberty, according to the elegancy and disposition of those 
times wherein they wrote. I see not then, but we should enjoy the 
same licence, or free power to illustrate and heighten our inven- 
tion, as they did ; and not be tied to those strict and regular forms 
which the niceness of a few, who are nothing but form, would 
thrust upon us."^ Tliat this conception of Jonson's in regard to 

^Ascham's exhaustive discussion of imitation scarcely considers the imi- 
tation of the master's art so much as the borrowing of material. Ascham 
gives six ways in which one can imitate an author, and all imply the bor- 
rowing of material. One sentence of his may well stand for what seems 
to be Jonson's method of borrowing from English literature: "Imitatio 
is lUssimilis materiei similis tractatio; and, also, similis materiel dis- 
similis tractatio" ( The Scholemaster, Book II ; quoted from Smith, Eliz. 
Grit. Essays, Vol. I, p. 8). Often I shall have occasion to point out that 
Jonson either uses the style or art of a contemporary, varying the matter, 
or liandles the same material with some new device or fresh expression. 

-See pp. 212 f. infra for a possible meaning of Vetus Comoedia in this 
passage. 

^In Timber Jonson frequently returns to this matter of independence in 
the poet. See Schelling's edition, pp. 7, 66, and 79. 80. These passages 
have been traced to Vives and Heinsius. Cf. Simpson, Mod. Lang. Review, 
Vol. II, pp. 209, 210, and Spingarn, Mod. Phil, Vol. II, pp. 453, 454. In 
this case again, however, they must represent Jonson's own ideas. Indeed, 



8 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

the conformity of poetry to the disposition of the time was not a 
passing one is clear from a remark to Drummond made twenty 
years later. Drtimmond's note reads : 

His censure of my vekses was: 

That they were all good, especiallie my Epitaphe of the Prince, save 
that they smelled too much of the Schooles, and were not after the fancie 
of the tyme: for a child (sayes he) may writte after the fashion of the 
Greeks and Latine verses in running; yett that he wished, to please the 
King, that piece of Forth Feasting had been his owne. 

Two things stand out in these expressions of Jonson's : first, his 
dependence upon the work of his predecessors in literature, and 
second, his insistence upon conformity in literature to "the fancie 
of the tyme." If Jonson's ideals are not inconsistent, then, we 
may expect to find, first, that though his knowledge of life will 
color all of his writings and his independence will make his treat- 
ment of themes fresh, he will look to other writers for his models 
and for the bulk of his material; and, second, that in spite of an 
exceedingly strong classical influence, his work will be English in 
spirit and tone, and will follow pretty closely the currents of Eng- 
lish literature. It is easy to point out cases where Jonson derived 
plot motives or ideas and phrases bodily from classic literature, 
but the English elements are often elusive. Jonson had a differ- 
ent attitude to borrowing from the classics and from native sources. 
To translate a fine classic phrase aptly he regarded almost as orig- 
inal work, while he scorned to steal phrases from the Arcadia. 
The one enriched the language ; the other did not. This large 
and obvious indebtedness to classical literature, along with the 
possibility that Jonson derived his comic material directly from 
observation of life, has so blinded scholars that they have failed 
to study minutely his relation to bis contemporaries. To my 
mind, he not only goes to them for a large number of suggestions 
as to what will be practical or appealing on the stage, but he brings 
his gi'eat skill and constructive power to bear upon a mass of hints 

the principle of free invention was one of the earliest critical conventions 
to be introduced into English literature. Wilson in his Arte of Rhetorique 
emphasizes the fact tliat all the principles of literary art are derived 
from the inventions of literary men and that "a wiseman . . . will 
not be bound to any precise rules . . . being master ouer arte," etc. 
(pp. 1.59, 160; cf. also p. 5). Wilson may have followed Quintilian, Insti- 
tutiones Oratoriae, Bk. X, Chap. ii. 



Jonson's Literary Ideals 9 

and treatments of types and situations scattered through contem- 
porary literature, crude and unfinished as they often are, and makes 
of these an original product. The pages immediately following, 
far afield as they apparently carry one from the humour plays, are 
merely to furnish illustrations of this idea from Jonson's other 
works, and to prepare for the study of the comedy of humours as a 
native development. 

The studiousness of Jonson is indicated by the variety of themes 
in his work. Tamquam explorator, his motto, suggests the constant 
intellectual curiosity of the man. His dramas alone show how 
large a number of fields he explored, for always the central theme 
is entirely fresh in Jonsonian comedy. Most frequently it is an 
expansion of a hint in an earlier play, but the new play has en- 
tered another region of the complex life of the London and Eng- 
land that Jonson knew. Even the typical classes and the typical 
vices that Jonson repeats are viewed nearly always from a fresh 
angle. Perhaps nothing shows the variety of Jonson's work better 
than the fact that the object of an intrigue is never the same in 
any two plays and only once or twice does he repeat an intriguer. 
In A Tale of a Tub we have Chanon Hugh manipulating plots to 
control the marriage of a rustic maid; in Every Man in his 
Humour the crafty servingman acting as intriguer through mere 
exuberance of roguery; in Every Man out of his Humour the 
envious Macilente giving reins to his mischievous malcontent; in 
Cynthia's Revels the noble Crites tilting against wrongs in the 
court; in Poetaster the maligned Horace defending the dignity of 
his art; in Volpone the avaricious old Fox and his parasite Mosca 
overreaching themselves. The "cotes of clowns" of A Tale of a 
Tub, the inn life of The New Inn, the pastoral life of The Sad 
Shepherd, the allegory of news and money in The Staple of News 
and of the compass in The Magnetic Lady need only be mentioned 
to set one thinking of the variety of fields that Jonson entered. 

This constant entering of fresh fields is an indication of Jon- 
son's work as a student rather than as an observer, for in nearly 
every case the general plan of the play can be traced to certain 
types or motives popular in contemporary literature. That is to 
say, the influences that guided Jonson in his choice of fields and 
themes were nearly always English. In the two tragedies and in 
some of the masques, classic material is used with only the slightest 



10 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

admixture of English material, and yet the relation of some of 
this most thoroughly classic work to themes of contemporary lit- 
erature indicates one side of the influence of the age. Eoman 
traged}^, especially in Julius Caesar, had made a great success 
when Jonson, leaving the field of native tragedy that he had chosen 
in Page of Plymouth and Robert II, King of Scots, gave England 
in Sejanus what he considered an appropriate treatment of a 
classic theme. Here Jonson has taken pains to show that prac- 
tically every idea and expression is paralleled in Latin authors. 
Yet there was a special reason for this strict classicism following 
a period of humour comedies. The references to classic sources 
for Sejanus are partly proof, at a time of danger for Jonson, that 
he was not satirizing the court or any contemporary in his great 
portrait of Pride and Ambition, but chiefly, perhaps, triumphant 
evidence that he who had been misunderstood, maligned, and scoffed 
at while he was trying to reform abuses and was writing in the 
mode of his fellows, could enter higher realms of literary work, 
make himself master of the thought and expression of the masters, 
and, leaving the treatment of contemporary manners and the mode 
of contemporary playwrights, sing 

high and aloof. 
Safe from the wolf's black jaw, and the dull ass's hoof. 

The two tragedies, of course, represent Jonson's most rigid 
classicism, but several of the masques approach them closely. 
Penates and The Entertainment at Theobalds (1607), though short, 
are excellent examples of the mA^thological masque purely classic in 
its figures. And yet no one can doubt that the prominence given to 
mythological figures m pageant and masque from the time of Henry 
VIII on determined the form of these earlier masques. Jonson 
soon outgrew the purer classic type. In The Masque of Hymen 
his own notes reveal his classicism, but Reason, the Humours, and 
the Affections, typical abstractions of Elizabethan didacticism, 
almost overshadow Hymen, the chief mythological figure. The 
Masque of Queens mingles classical and medieval lore. Doubtless 
Macbeth had rendered witches popular before Jonson's work ap- 
peared, and at the same time had shown how the mystic rites of 
the witches could be turned into fascinating dramatic and operatic 
scenes. Jonson in The Masque of Queens has utilized the wild 



Jonson's Literary Ideals 11 

night scenes, the dances, and the conjurations of Macbeth, treat- 
ing them according to the authoritative details that had come 
down to the learned in the Latin poets and the medieval masters 
of magic art. Perhaps he had boasted of this fact. At any rate, 
by the request of Prince Henry he annotated his masque, giving 
authority for every rite and every characteristic of the witches. 
But, though Jonson's picture of the House of Fame and the queens 
enthroned upon it may be referred to Chaucer, and he has indicated 
his intention to reconcile "the practice of antiquity to the neoteric" 
(WorJcs, Vol. Ill, p. 50), his debt to contemporary literature is 
still unduly obscured, perhaps, by his parade of classical sources. 
Anders {Jahrbuch, Vol. XXXVIII, pp. 240 f.) has pointed out 
some verbal parallels between The Masque of Queens and Scot's 
Discovery of Witchcraft. Above all, in spite of the large amount 
of borrowing from classic sources, one would never associate The 
Masque of Queens with classicism; it echoes too thoroughly what 
might be called the romantic attitude to witclicraft in Jonson's 
own day. 

More decidedly English is The Satyr. Here Jonson has joined 
the Latin satyr with the English Mab, and has closed the masque 
with a speech modeled on the old play of Nobody and Somebody^ 
and introducing a morris dance. The presence of the Satyr is 

^Cf. Fleay, Biog. Chron. Eng. Drama, Vol. II, p. 1. Not only are the 
plays upon words similar, but in Jonson's masque as in Nobody and Some- 
body, the dress of Nobody is "a pair of breeches which were made to come 
up to his neck, with his arms out at his pockets." In Greene's Quip for 
an Upstart Courtier {Works, ed. Grosart, Vol. XI, pp. 220 ff.), Velvet- 
breeches and Cloth-breeches are headless and bodiless, having merely legs. 
The idea as inherited from the Odyssey is used in Harvey's Pierces Super- 
erogation (Works, ed. Grosart, Vol. II, p. 211), where there is a play on 
Outis, Nobody, and Somebody. Jonson has the play upon Outis and Nobody 
in The Fortunate Isles. Nemo is a character of The Three Ladies of Lon- 
don and The Three Lords and Three Ladies of London. Marston's Antonio 
and Mellida is dedicated to "Nobody, bovinteous Mecaenas of poetry and 
Lord Protector of oppressed innocence," and Day's Humour out of Breath 
is dedicated to Signior Nobody. Dyer has a poem called "A Praise of 
Nothing." In Breton's Wit of Wit (1599) "Scholler and Souldier" opens 
with plays upon the word nothing, and in the same year Nashe in his 
Lenten Stuff e {Works, ed. McKerrow, Vol. Ill, p. 177) makes a satirical 
allusion to the writer who "comes foorth with something in prayse of 
nothing." Ci. Ward, Hist. Eng. Dram. Lit., Vol. I, p. 436, "and Vol. IT, p. 
597; and Simpson, School of Shakspere, Vol. I, p. 270. This is an excel- 
lent example of how the most conventional or commonplace idea may ap- 
peal to Jonson. 



12 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

misleading/ for the masque is purely English in tone and material 
and contains the most delicate poetry dealing with English fairy 
lore. Indeed it is full of conventional fairy material^ and such an 

expression as 

Faeries, pinch him black and blue, 
Now you have him, make him rue," 

is to be found a score of times in English writers. The fairies 
and the morris dance again represent a convention in the masque 
that reaches back to Tudor times or earlier, when the folk customs 
began to furnish material for the first English masques and 
pageants. The satyr, in the form of the wild man of the wood 
especially, is also at home in the masque.^ It was the taste of 
the times that induced Jonson to mingle classic and folk lore. 
So for masque after masque parallels could be given showing how 
Jonson, often gatliering from classic sources, still drifts in his 
treatment to what is characteristic of English life and literature; 
and some of his masques, The Masque of Christmas, for instance, 
are as thoroughly English as is Bartholomew Fair. 

Jonson's characteristic method of working, of gathering like the 
bee, may be seen at its best in the comedies, and here we naturally 

^He is called Pug, or Puck, in, one place, and in folk-lore Puck's functions 
are confused with those of Mab. 

=Cf. Endimion, IV, 3, and Bond, Works of Lylij. Vol. III. p. 514. note. 
In The Alchemist Dapper is severely pinched while the supposed fairies 
cry "Ti, ti." This is closest to the pinching of Falstaff in The Merry 
Wives, but a similar incident is mentioned in John a Kent and John a 
Uumber. 

^In The Princely Pleasures at Kenilworth Castle, there appeared in one 
device "one clad like a Sauage man, all in luie" called Silvester, and later 
his son called Audax {Poems of Gascoigne, ed. Hazlitt, Vol. II, pp. 96, 109, 
113). Another entertainment was planned, in which Sylvanus was to ap- 
pear (ibid., p. 124). In The Entertainment at Coiodray, 1591, "a wilde 
man cladde in luie" addressed the Queen {Works of Lyly, ed. Bond, Vol. 
I, p. 425). In The Entertainment at Elvetham, 1591, the costume of 
Sylvanus, who addressed the Queen, is carefully described as that of a 
satyr, while "his followers were all couered with luy-leaues" {ihid., p. 
444). Speeches Delivered to her Majesty at Bisham, 1592, opens with an 
address by "a wilde man," who speaks of "wee Satyres" {ibid., p. 472). 
Notices of masques in Feuillerat s Documents reiating to the Office of the 
Revels in the Time of Queen Elizabeth indicate that the wild man was an 
earlier favorite. At the Christmas festivities of 1573-4 there was a 
masque of foresters and hunters with torchbearers clothed in moss and 
ivy. These latter are apparently spoken of later as "wylde Men" and the 
masque as the "Mask of Wyldemen" (pp. 193, 199. 457). In July, 1574, 
there was some theatrical performance, perhaps a pastoral, in which 
"wylde mannes" appeared (pp. 227, 458). Cf. Brotanek, Die engl. Mas- 
kenspiele, p. 3, etc. 



Jonson's Literary Ideals 13 

have the strongest English influence. Sometimes the basis is 
Latin, as in The Case is Altered and Poetaster; sometimes Italian 
furnishes much, as in The Alchertiist, if Bruno's II Candelaio is a 
source, or in The Devil is an Ass, where two stories of Boccaccio 
are utilized; and sometimes the elements are purely English, as in 
Bartliolomeiv Fair. Often, however, Jonson's material for any 
single play is furnished by many literatures of different ages. 
But the whole in each case is Jonson's in organization, in tone, 
and in final effect. Gathering from any source, with a wonder- 
fully accurate and minute knowledge of literature, Jonson fuses 
into a unit and gives fresh life to his borrowed material. This is 
scarcely less true of what has been borrowed from classic literature 
than of what has been borrowed from English. And, to my mind, 
this unity, this consistency, arises largely from the fact that the 
whole is English in spirit, as Jonson was English to the core. 

As an illustration of the English element in Jonson's comedies, 
Bartholomeiv Fair is tlie obvious clioice. Here there is of course 
no question of classic influence; the question is whether Jonson 
drew his picture entirely from English life or was influenced by 
English literary treatment. I have elsewhere shown that the old 
play of Sir Thomas More offers a probable source for much of 
Jonson's cutpurse material in Bartholomeiv Fair {Modern Philol- 
^911, Vol. YI, pp. 109-127). There are a number of similarities 
that indicate a direct dependence of the one play on the other. It 
is noticeable, however, that Jonson's treatment of the motives com- 
mon to both plays is nearer to folk-lore than is his source, and that 
Bartholomew Fair shows Jonson's knowledge of other treatments 
of similar scenes. In particular Greene's coney-catching pamphlets 
seem to have given Jonson some important situations and some 
details of characterization. An interesting parallel, also, is the like- 
ness of Autolycus of Winter's Tale to Lanthorn Leatherhead. I 
myself have little doubt that Jonson got from Shakespeare the 
suggestion for the character on the stage, but my belief rests merely 
on the nearness of the two plays in time of production and on the 
greater similarity of Jonson's rogues to Autolycus than to any 
other rogues that I recall. Both Shakespeare and Jonson have a 
long line of predecessors, however. In The Blind Beggar of Bed- 
nal Green, we have the young simpleton Strowd, who like Cokes 
is robbed again and again, and always reappears, full of zest and 



14 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

naivete. The rogues here, like Jonson's, change quickly from one 
calling to another, from purse-cutting to fortune-telling and 
finally to producing puppet-shows, returning always to meet a 
foolish victim with new tricks. The rogues of Look About You 
and The Dutch Courtezan, too, while not so conventional in their 
tricks, perhaps, have the same resourcefulness, buoyancy, and per- 
petual success that belong to the imaginative dealing with rogues 
in general. Indeed, outside of the fact that Jonson is primarily 
the student of books and that many parallels to his treatment of 
rogues can actually be found in literature, there is evidence of his 
dependence on literature rather than on observation in that the 
whole tone of his treatment is in accord with the romantic roguery 
of literature and folk-lore. 

Even in the puppet-show, where Hero and Leander are con- 
nected with the ghost of Dionysius, Jonson may be following the 
line of least resistance, for Nashe in his Lenten Stuff e (Works, ed. 
McKerrow, Vol. Ill, pp. 194 fP.) has a burlesque treatment of 
Dionysius followed immediately by a burlesque of Hero and 
Leander. In the treatment of the lovers, both Kashe and Jonson 
begin with praise of Marlowe's Hero and Leander, and proceed to 
travesty the story, destroying all romance, vulgarizing Hero, and 
stressing her imchastity. Both men are doubtless mocking 
romance as it is fed to tlie populace, one utilizing the puppet-shows 
and the other the commercial town of Yarmouth, where all senti- 
meht is subordinated to the glory of the herring. This connection 
between the two works seems all the more probable if Gifford is 
right in his conjecture (Works of Jonson, Vol. II, p. 197) that 
Jonson's puppet-show "'had been exhibited at an early period as a 
simple burlesque," and on account of its popularity was later re- 
worked and inserted in Bartholomew Fair. In favor of GifEord's 
theory is the fact that at the close of the sixteenth century the 
parody of classical stories, especially love stories, was a fad of 
literary men. It is seen in Love's Labour s Lost, Midsummer 
Night's Dream, Histriomastix, and the academic Narcissus. Again, 
the Damon and Pithias quarrel in Jonson's show, according to 
Gifford (Wo7'ks of Jonson, Vol. II, p. 203), is a burlesque on the 
quarrel between the pages in the play of Damon and Pithias. In 
method, at least, the abuse and the pointless echoing and repeti- 
tion are alike in the two cases. Such exercises, of which the knave 



Jonson's Literary Ideals 15 

song of Twelfth NigJit (II, 3) is typical, were evidently favorites 
with Elizabethan audiences. 

The Devil is an Ass furnishes a better basis of study than 
Bartholomew Fair, for the devil offers no chance of confusing the 
actualities of life with the conventionalities of literature, and, ex- 
cept for an element of folk superstition, we may be pretty sure 
that Jonson's treatment is derived from books wherever we find it 
agreeing with books. Perhaps it is partly in consequence of this 
that for The Devil is an Ass, so far as the devil motive is con- 
cerned, more sources have been pointed out in English than for 
any other play perhaps, though Jonson was probably not influenced 
by English literature to a much greater extent here than in a num- 
ber of his other comedies. Jonson himself, however, calls attention 
in The Devil is an Ass to several of the devil plays and to the work 
of Barrel. Mr. W. S. Johnson in his edition of The Devil is an 
Ass for the Yale Studies in English has been the latest to con- 
sider the sources of this play. He has gathered together the work 
of his predecessors, added some new details, and altogether given 
one of the best expositions we have had of how Jonson used his 
sources. Mr. Johnson makes it clear, for instance, that the most 
important treatments of the devil in story and play furnished ele- 
ments for Jonson's Pug. The basis of The Devil is an Ass he 
takes to be the old prose history of Friar Rush, but he finds Jon- 
son's play closer in some respects to Dekker's If this he not a Good 
Play, which is itself founded upon the Rush story. Moreover, after 
discussing the relation of The Devil is an Ass to Belfagor, the 
novella of Machiavelli, Mr. Johnson asserts that "on the whole we 
are not warranted in concluding with any certainty that Jonson 
knew the novella at all." In Grim, Collier of Croyden, however, 
which is built upon the Belfagor legend, Mr. Johnson finds a close 
parallel to The Devil is an Ass, and he concludes: "The English 
comedy seems, indeed, to account adequately for all traces of the 
Belfagor story to be found in Jonson's play." Here, then, we 
apparently find Jonson following the line of treatment in contem- 
porary dramatists rather than in foreign or remoter English 
sources. 

This somewhat extended list of examples is sufficient, I believe, 
to establish the fact that Jonson, if we make all allowance for his 
love of the classics, for his independent attitude to English 



16 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

writers, for his professed scorn of borrowing, and for his broad 
experience of life as a source of material, still kept in close touch 
with the movements of English literature, especially of the drama, 
and was ready to adopt any device that fitted his purpose so long 
as he could handle it freshly. 



CHAPTER II 

THE ENGLISH TEMPER OF JONSON's WORK 

Before an attempt is made to trace the development of Jonson's 
type of humour comedy out of general English tendencies, some- 
thing further should be said of his relation to contemporary liter- 
ature in its most general aspects. Inevitably much that is to be 
dealt with more specifically later will be anticipated. But for an 
understanding of the later treatment a statement is needed of Jon- 
son's thorough accord with the spirit of what I shall call English 
didacticism. 

The humour comedies belong to the general trend toward formal 
satire that marks the close of the sixteenth century. Jonson him- 
self calls Every Man out of Ms Humour, Cynthia's Bevels, and 
Poetaster "comical satires." In 1601, the year in which the last 
play of the group was produced, two references to Jonson's work 
appeared which pretty definitely indicate the relation of the humour 
comedies to the strong contemporary movement toward satire. In 
TJie Whipping of the Satyr e by W. I., directed, according to Col- 
lier, principally against Marston, Jonson, and Breton, — who are 
not mentioned but are clearly indicated, — the section headed In 
Epigrammatistam et Humoristam has the following passage: 

It seemes your brother Satyre, and ye twayne, 
Plotted three wayes to put the Divell downe: 
One should outrayle him by invective vaine: 
One all to flout him like a country clowne; 
And one in action on a stage out-face. 
And play upon him to his great disgrace. 

You Humorist, if it be true I heare. 
An action thus against the Divell brought, 
Sending your humours to each Theater, 
To serve the writ that ye had gotten out. 
That Mad-cap yet superiour praise doth win. 
Who, out of hope, even casts his cap at sin.^ 

^Quoted from Collier's Rarest Books, Vol. IV, pp. 253 ff. by Alden in 
The Rise of Formal Satire in England under Classical Influence, Publ. 
Univ. Penn., Vol. VII, No. 2, pp. 163, 164. The summary of Collier's ac- 
count of the book is also from Prof. Alden. 



18 Englisli Elements in Jonson's Eariij Comedy 

The second work referring to the new school of comedy is No 
^Yhippinge, nor trippinge: hut a Tcinde friendly Snippinge. Here 
again we have the humour comedies classified along with epigrams 
and formal satires as a distinct phase of the new satiric movement: 

'Tis strange to see the humors of these dales: 
How first the Satyre bites at imperfections: 
The Epigrammist in his quips displaies 
A wicked course in shadowes of corrections: 
The Humorist hee strictly makes collections 
Of loth'd behaviours both in youthe and age: 
And makes them plaie their parts upon a stage.^ 

The interest in satire at the close of the century marks a renewed 
classicism following upon a period of sonnet and romance writing. 
More, Erasmus, and others had opened the century with classic 
ideals in literature uppermost, and the influence of the Latin classics 
is the dominant feature in the advance of English literary art for 
the first two thirds of the century. Then the prose romances, 
romantic dramas, and love poetry, especially the sonnets, of the 
Italian period engaged the greatest literary masters from the seven- 
ties of the century to the early nineties. Following that, the most 
conscious literary movement was the one toward formal satire. 
Here the classic satirists and epigrammatists naturally exerted a 
strong influence. In the drama, too, there is found a renewed in- 
terest in the classics. The most important influence on Jonson's 
plays of the period was English satire itself ; but The Case is Al- 
tered is drawn from Plautus; Every Man in is influenced by Plau- 
tine types; Cynthia's Revels borrows from Lucian and apparently 
from Aristotle; and Poetaster owes much to the satires of Horace. 

On the surface, then, the new satiric trend readily connects itself 
with classicism. But the conditions that called for a school of 
satire are to be found in English life itself, especially in the de- 
cadence of Italian culture in England. The picture of English 
life presented by the satirists is. of course, overcolored by the pre- 
vailing fashion of malcontent and satirical posing, but there can 
be little doubt that the elegance of the Italian culture, which in the 
beginning had introduced a refining influence into English liter- 
ature and manners, in the end brought its train of abuses. Sidney 

^Also quoted from Alden, loc. cit., pp. 164, 165. The work has been re- 
printed m Isham Reprints, No. 3. 



The English Temper of Jonson's WorJc 19 

and Spenser followed the courtly fashions of ]3oetry, — of pastoral- 
ism and chivalry and courtly love, — but their temper was idealistic, 
and a spiritual worth pervaded even their fashionable poetry. The 
high critical ideals of the ardent theorists of the early Eenaissance 
in Italy were sacred to these two, although Sidney especially seems 
often to have caught the passing fad rather than imparted the 
great lesson. Undoubtedly, also, there is a moral wholesomeness 
underlying the romantic art of Shakespeare, and, even when Jon- 
son began his work, the fine spiritualizing power of the Eenaissance 
had not passed altogether. But the effect of the Eenaissance in 
England had l^een in the end to build up rapidly and artificially a 
system essentially un-English. We scarcely realize now how much 
the abstract theories of the Eenaissance, through the literature that 
embodied them, worked their way into the life of the period. The 
language of Eupkues and Arcadia, the outgrowth of the study of 
rhetoric, entered into speech; the manners described by the writers 
of the Italian school became the conscious manners of England. 
English manners had no doubt been somewhat crude even during 
the early sixteenth century, though for such as would heed, a simple 
body of instruction had existed. Now the age seems to have waked 
to a fervid cultivation of elegance in manners, and the Italian 
courtesy books furnished the pattern. Castiglione's Courtier, the 
most brilliant of them, was followed by many others — some of 
themt less worthy. But sane and moral as were Castiglione's in- 
structions and those of other early writers, abuse soon followed. 
Indeed, the passion for the refinement and elegance of Italian cul- 
ture degenerated in almost all its phases into a worship of form 
far beyond the worship that had ever been inspired by the ethical 
and esthetic qualities, the ease, grace, delicacy, and idealism of 
that culture. 

The follies of the fashionable had for years been jealously 
watched by the Puritan. Now the satirist and the dramatist both 
turned to the attack, men whose temper was that of the middle- 
class Englishman — Greene, Nashe, Lodge, Chapman, Hall, Donne, 
Marston, and Jonson, Of all these men none was more uncom- 
promising in attitude than Jonson and at the same time so honest. 
Marston may be bitterer, but the dignity of sincerity is lacking in 
his work: affectation runs riot in his satire against affectation. 
But grim earnestness drives Jonson on. The disg'ust at the frivol- 



20 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

ities and excesses of Italianate letters and manners finds its fullest 
and sternest expression in Jonson's criticism and satire. Every- 
thing connected with the courtly ideal he attacks, upholding in 
opposition a moral wholesomeness and a literary restraint. 

To the sturdier type of Englishmen, the conditions reflected in 
the work of these satirists, discount their satire how we may, must 
have l)een well-nigh unbearable. The life of the courtly was ap- 
parently largely given over to the ceremony of living. Court of 
love conventions, Platonic love, and chivalry were cultivated to add 
to the dignity and elaboration of formal manners. Some fantastic 
conceit entered into the most ordinary act of the pretentious gal- 
lant's life — into smoking, drinking, dressing, bowing, talking, walk- 
ing, riding, duelling ; and for large numbers of the new-rich doubt- 
less the readiest way to social distinction lay through the affectation 
of the forms of gallantry. The cultivation of "singularity," so 
often mentioned by the satirists, rendered men oblivious to the 
absurdity of their manners, until conceit and affectation became 
ends in themselves. With the fashionable the pursuit of letters 
also degenerated into a fashion. By a fixed convention every cour- 
tier must not only be a lover but he must write poetry in honor 
of his mistress. It is not strange, then, that one of the commonest 
subjects of satire is the love poetry of the courtly with its immense 
volume, its petty themes, its forced passion, and its affected diction. 
The most complete picture of all these follies is of course to be 
found in Cynthia's Bevels. The play is a gigantic satire against 
the whole fabric of courtly manners and ideals. It voices Jon- 
son's scorn for the conventions and poetry of courtly love, for the 
games of gallants, for the duello, for fashions in dress, perfumes, 
etc. ; it ridicules the courtier, the gallant, the traveler, the upstart, 
the shallow woman of wealth. Against the futile and absurd 
social ideals of the day, Jonson sets Crites, the man of sanity and 
roundedness, and Arete, the woman guided solely by virtue. 

But not alone the decadence of Italian culture brought reaction. 
England's holiday spirit was passing. The buoyancy of the gen- 
eral temper, the hope and vision of individual accomplishment, 
waned. Melancholy and pessimism became fashionable. Sonnet 
sequences gave place to series of epigrams and satires. Despite the 
fact that the material of the satirical school was conventionalized 
as the new type of literature grew in popularity, we feel that in the 



The English Temper of Jonsons WorTc 31 

satire at the end of the sixteenth century there is much truth to 
the feeling of England, a real echo of changing conditions. The 
change was more than a reaction in mood. Elizabeth was grow- 
ing old, and political conditions were uncertain. Puritanism, 
which w^as becoming more and more insistent, brought greater acer- 
bit)' to life. While the wealth of England was increasing through- 
out the century, the masses felt keenly the rise of prices, and the 
rich and the new-rich felt perhaps as keenly the clash of social 
readjustment. Nearly all of this is to be gathered from Jonson's 
satire. Such a study as that of the corn-hoarder Sordido indicates 
the attention paid to economic conditions. The numerous gulls 
and pretenders reveal the struggle attendant upon social readjust- 
ment. In the rather harsh and bitter satire of the end of the cen- 
tury with its reaction against the youthful hope and. enthusiasm, 
the ideals and dreams, of Eenaissance poetry there are thus embod- 
ied themes indicating that England had developed too fast for 
stability, that she had allowed the same zestful ferment in economic 
and civic affairs as in intellectual pursuits and was now being 
forced to take reckoning. 

The revival of classical satire at the end of the century and the 
spirit of excess and disillusionment that called forth this satire are 
still not sufficient to explain Jonson's art, his temper, or his themes 
and literary material. This reaction against the glamor of the 
Eenaissance culture was in fact largely a reassertion of the more 
normal Englis'h attitude of the century, marked by earnestness and 
morality. Steadily English life was tending toward certain moral 
and social ideals despite fads of the literary and the noble, the 
passing of a ruler, or the outcome of wars and political schemes. 
In morality or religion, the trend took the form of Puritanism. 
In social life, the trend was toward democracy. This spirit of 
democracy expressed itself in the clash of prentices and gentlemen, 
in the stern struggle between the London burgesses and the Crown 
over the suppression of the theatres, and finally in the Common- 
wealth. 

It is to this deeper current of English sentiment that Jonson 
belongs. Into his work enters the whole mood of middle-class 
England. His intellectual and moral temper springs not from 
his classical training but from his stubborn English instinct and 
genius. Jonson's satire is not a matter of fashion; it is the com- 



22 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

pound result of all the forces that made conservative middle-class 
English sentiment, with the added force of a greater classical cul- 
ture than the average man possessed even in Jonson's day. As a 
humanist, Jonson was bitterly opposed to Puritanism with its hos- 
tility to the fine arts. Yet the difference is largely a matter of 
point of view. The seriousness, .the dogged intentness, the in- 
stincts and prejudices of the democratic Englishman colored the 
mental and moral attitude of Jonson as well as that of the Puritan, 
and made at once the strength and the limitation of both. Jonson 
and Puritanism are equally expressive of the English genius. Jon- 
son was also in accord with the democratic spirit of the average 
Englishman. Plis democracy appears in his jealousy of the regard 
paid him by nobles and in his obstinate claim to equality with the 
best. It appears still more pervasively in his whole attitude to the 
idea of the courtly. To my mind Cynthia's Revels is the most 
illuminating of Jonson's plays as an expression of his own feeling. 
Presumably his satire is directed against the abuses of the system 
which he portrays, but through the play there runs a strong cur- 
rent of hostility to the whole idea underlying the system itself. It 
is noticeable that whereas Castiglione had presented the iJeal type 
as the courtier whose nobility rests upon birth and wealth, Jon- 
son's ideal, Crites, is poor, seemingly of humble birth, and scorns 
the graces of the eourt.^ 

This native and bourgeois instinct of Jonson's is apparent in 
his lack of sympathy with romantic and courtly literature. In 

^For The Courtier itself Jonson seems to have had at a later period at 
any rate high regard. In Timber (ed. Schelling, p. 71) he classes it with 
Cicero's De Oratore as a valuable source of illustrative material, and he 
assuredly borrows from it for Every Man Out. At the end of the six- 
teenth century, however, Castiglione's name was employed by the satirists 
to designate an obnoxious type of gallant. Marston uses the name Castillo 
for the type in both of his collections of satires and in Antonio and Mel- 
lida; and Guilpin in Skialetheia uses Castillo as well as Balthazer for 
satire on court types. Cf. pp. 195 f. infra for these passages of Marston 
and Guilpin. The kinship of Puntarvolo with Marston's and especially 
with Guilpin's Castillo type, and the tierce satire in Cijnthia''s Revels on 
courtly ideals raise the question whether Jonson's favorable opinion of 
The Courtier did not come at a later period when he himself had close 
relations with the court and was one of the courtly. Perhaps, however, 
like Ascham, in spite of his hostility to Italian manners Jonson recog- 
nized in The Courtier a high moral influence and a noble idealism. Never- 
theless, Jonson's ideal type for the court, Crites, differs from the ideal 
courtier of Castiglione in almost all details, in spite of the fact that both 
were probably influenced by Aristotle's conception of the "high-minded 
man." 



The English Temper of Jonson's Work 33 

The Case is Altered he essayed to follow the prevailing fashion and 
even utilized some romantic conventions in addition to those bor- 
rowed from Plautus. But the true romantic heroine Eachel is 
handled charily and apparently with lack of ease and spirit, while 
a number of the other characters fit well the satiric tone of the 
play, being little more than studies in clownage or in humours. 
Jonson e\ddently could not abandon himself to the world of ro- 
mance. This might be said to indicate a limitation of his genius 
rather than of his sympathies, but he really seems to have shared 
the bourgeois distaste for the literature of mere enjoyment. The 
love poetry of the day was especially distasteful to him. "Songs 
and sonnets" he constantly employs as a term of contempt. A 
part of his attitude may, of course, be traced to classicism. His 
appreciation of the best ideals of classicism would probably account 
sufficiently for his fierce satire on Euphuism, Arcadianism, and all 
the forms of affected and extravagant diction in the Italianate 
school of writers which sprang out of a perverted classicism. In 
this he but follows the most English of the fine classicists produced 
at the height of the Latin phase of the Eenaissance in England — 
Cheke, Ascham, Wilson, and others.^ Jonson's admiration for 
classic art would also account for such criticism on the courtly 
literature as is based on lack of consistency or on crudeness of 
workmanship. But his early lack of svmpathy with the whole 
spirit of romancing could hardly be attributed to the influence of 
a literature tliat included among its writers Virgil, a master of the 
finest spirit of romancing, and Seneca, who contributed largely to 
English romantic tragedy, men most highly honored by Jonson. 
Much that T have said, however, as to Jonson's attitude to this 
lighter body of literature applies more especially to the plays of 
the period we are studying. Contact with the courtly in the years 
following Cynthia's Bevels may have softened his asperity to some 
extent. Tn his own later work there is certainly much courtly 

^Professor Raleigh has stated admirably the hostility of this early group 
to excessive Latinity and other forms of word-mongery, and at the same 
time to the Italianate influence. Cf. his introduction to Hoby's transla- 
tion of The Courtier, pp. xi ff. Devotion to classic learning inspired these 
men, but the greatest force is their sturdy English reformation temper. 
An interesting instance of the accord of these men with Jonson lies in the 
fact that Ascham and Cheke (Scholemaster, ed. Arber. p. 1.55) as well as 
Jonson (dedication to Volpone) insist on the moral life of the writer as 
a source of power in literary work. 



24 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

compliment, and Jonson is often guilty of the sins he attacks most 
fiercely in Cynthia's Revels. Moreover, some lyrics and The Sad 
Shepherd at the close of his career disarm the criticism that his 
muse lacked grace and delicacy, that his work was not artistic is 
the highest sense of the word. Much of Herrick's perfection is 
due to Jonson's lessoning. And yet, when this is said, we readily 
recognize the opposition of Jonson's work to all that Shakespeare's 
stands for. 

But the dominance of Shakespeare in the whole age and the 
connection of the greatest names of the period with the Italian 
influence brought by the Eenaissance should not cause us to forget 
that the close of the sixteenth century and the opening of the seven- 
teenth were as profoundly affected by a serious mood as by the 
mood represented in romantic and folk literature. The blither 
spirit of the courtier with his Italianate romance or love poetry 
and of the common man with his medieval ballad or tale produced 
the supreme literature of England. But Jonson and his fellows 
represent just as great a constituency. In other words, Jonson, 
for all his classicism, carries on much of the literary art that had 
been fairly consistent in tone and purpose during the century and 
that represented the democratic masses of England. Didactic is 
the word that most aptly describes the general temper of this liter- 
ature. Much of the spirit and a great bulk of the thought and 
material of the didactic writers seems to me to be Jointly an inheri- 
tance from the Middle Ages and an outgrowth, determined largely 
by the Eeformation, of sixteenth century English life. The product 
in England was a great mass of serious literature, thoroughly Eng- 
lish in spirit although affected from time to time by other litera- 
tures. It is here that we must look for the most important elements 
of Jonsonian comedy. 

First, the effect of this more genuinely English literature in 
modifying Jonson's classicism may be mentioned, though an at- 
tempt to indicate the amount of adaptation that must take place 
in any such transfer from literature to literature would he futile. 
Indeed, a considerable amount of modification would be taken for 
granted. But certain forces, not accidental, affected first the 
intensity of the moral purpose underlying his work and second the 
temper and spirit of his satire. 

The didacticism of much of Latin literature takes a Christian 



The English Temper of Jonson's Work 25 

and Anglican turn in Jonson's classicism. The dictum of Horace 
that literature must be profitable was hardly so narrowly inter- 
preted by him as by Jonson, nor was it so binding. In adapting 
classic ideals, the early theorists of the Eenaissance, partly, no 
doubt, under the influence of medieval Christianity with its hos- 
tility to the purely artistic, had laid a strong stress upon the moral 
function of poetry. It was chiefly by emphasizing this moral func- 
tion that the early critics like Sidney had defended the dignity and 
moral worth of their art against the attacks of the Puritans, and 
the princijjles of Sidney and of the school of critics who were called 
upon to defend the newly arising imaginative literature, Jonson 
adopted as his own with Every Man in. But the deeper serious- 
ness that entered into the expression of critical tenets for Jonson 
makes itself felt practically as a vital force in his literary work. 
The overserious tone and the unimaginative art of a vast body of 
medieval literature, in which stories are made exempla and men 
and women mere moral abstractions, continued and manifested 
itself in Elizabethan literature, even in the case of many writers 
who were classic in spirit and belonged heartily to the Renaissance, 
Sidney himself uses the didactic nature of this older body of Eng- 
lish literatui'e as a defense of the art of "poesie" in England. But 
whereas to Sidney, whose genius was more inspired, the principles 
of The Defense of Poesy were merely for general guidance, Jonson 
accepts them as actual working rules. The spirit of Jonson's liter- 
ary work is thus expressive not only of classicism but of certain 
aspects of his own character and, even more, of the forces in Eng- 
lish literature that made for an exaggerated moral seriousness. 

The spirit of Jonson's satiric treatment was perhaps another 
heritage from classicism which came to him partly through the 
medium of his contemporaries and was colored by his own Eng- 
lish intenseness. It is often stated that Juvenal, as most in accord 
with the English temper, was the Latin satirist to whom the Eng- 
lish school of satire was most indebted. Juvenal clearly exerted 
a strong influence on Jonson's portraiture of Asper. But in sus- 
tained intensity and acerbity the satiric literature of the sixteenth 
century doubtless passes the bounds set by even the bitterest of the 
classic satirists. This is the result partly of the English temper, 
and partly, no doubt, of the satiric license exhibited in the bitter 
personal quarrels of the century, in Skelton's attacks on Wolsey, 



26 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

in the Martin-Marprelate controversy;, and in the ISTashe-Harvey 
quarrel. Jonson was scarcely so unrestrained as Hall or Marston 
or a number of his fellows, but the reader will look in vain for 
any trace of urbanity in his satire. 

This influence of native English literature upon borrowed classic- 
ism is naturally in large part an influence upon modes of handling 
character. For the satirist inevitably turned to English types and 
individuals, and already native literature had developed character- 
istic attitudes, groupings, and methods of analysis, from which men 
did not readily free themselves. Jonson's primary concern in his 
humour plays is with the treatment not of incident but of char- 
acter, and with the mirroring of life in his characters. Conse- 
quently, he is very susceptible to native influence, and many of his 
typical figures, much of his method of characterization, indeed 
much of his art in general, reflects native English and even me- 
dieval character treatment. 

First of all, the whole humour conception owes a great deal to 
that body of medieval English literature which I have spoken of 
as contributing to English didacticism in the sixteenth century. 
Under the Renaissance rule of decorum, which demanded consis- 
tencv in the treatment of character, some tendencies of classical 
literature would naturally lead to abstractions rather than flesh- 
and-blood men and women. The Theophrastan character sketch 
with its choice of a single adjective that gave the unifying idea 
was one, and such analyses extended into satire and other forms 
of literature. Many characters of Latin comedy, also, especially 
the boaster, illustrate one quality. The idea of decorum was evi- 
dently formulated for and from such cases. But the use of allegory 
had made the abstraction the most prominent feature of medieval 
literature, and, before the conception of humours became prevalent, 
the closer approach of these abstractions of allegory, and especially 
of the morality, to real life had been leading directly toward a 
treatment of character that was substantially the same thing as Jon- 
son's treatment of humours. This greater verisimilitude sprang 
of course from a keen desire for artistic excellence in the delinea- 
tion of character, — a desire awakened perhaps by the Eenaissance, — 
but, in the coming of humanism and the resulting interest in 
the analysis of individuals from life, men did not altogether lose 
touch with medieval art, or revolt from the moral symbolism to 



The English Temper of Jonson's ^Vorh 27 

which they were accustomed in its character treatment, or cast 
away all of its results in thought, its influence on the attitude to 
men and women. The point of view survived in the new humour 
types, and an abstract idea or principle, sometimes a social class, 
is represented by most of Jonson's characters. Macilente is almost 
a pure abstraction, a portrayal of Envy in much of the characteri- 
zation. So Carlo Buffone is a representation of Detraction and 
Derision combined. Both characters show a similarity to the older 
medieval treatment of the abstractions which would indicate the in- 
fluence of medieval art in Jonson's characteristic work. Moreover, 
outside of the fact that the sixteenth century mind was habituated 
to the characters of allegory and readily passed to the humour point 
of view, the attention paid to the didactic function of literature 
through the century called for a type of symbolism which down to 
Jonson's own time encouraged the allegorical method in character 
treatment and stressed the single trait, the dominant motive, the 
mastering inclination. Thus not only the humour types of Jon- 
son, with their forerunners in the drama of Lyly and in prose 
fiction, but also the character sketch and the satire of the last 
quarter of the sixteenth century never lose the impress of the art 
of allegory. In spite of the elements of classical literature that 
are fused with the older English elements, we are conscious of the 
apparently inevitable English drift toward the moral and the 
allegorical. '^ 

The combination of this allegorical point of view with the classi- 
cal view of character treatment is easily accounted for. In fact 
the serious classicist like Sidney or Jonson was more prone to stress 
the analysis of character, the obvious trait, and the technique of 
treatment than a free-lance like Shakespeare, who merely catches 
the new spirit without being checked by reverence for precept. 
There is much in the abstractions of classical literature, in the 
principles of its philosophy, in the exaggerated but consistent fol- 
lies of its comedy, and in its ratiocinative attitude to literary 
standards to suggest kinship with the ideals of allegory. Thus the 
medieval conception of character treatment gathered tenaciously 
around itself all those tendencies of classic literature that accorded 
with its own tendencies ; or, at any rate, it was able to impose itself 

^An attempt is made in the chapter below, "A Study of Humours," to 
trace with more detail this development of the treatment of character. 



28 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

upon many writers who were thoroughly under the influence of 
classic models. For example, one of the strongest classic influences 
of the period toward a treatment of character in which one trait 
is dominant came from the Aristotelian and pseudo-Aristotelian 
virtues and vices, which were easily associated with the Christian 
virtues and vices. The lists of virtues as given by Plato and 
Aristotle had early been absorbed into the medieval point of view, 
as in Skelton's Magnificence, or had formed the basis of a truer 
Renaissance treatment, as in Elyot's Governour. Groups of virtues 
or vices could scarcely pass into English literature without being 
influenced by the typical groups of abstractions — such as the Seven 
Deadly Sins and the Four Daughters of G-od — that were handed 
down from medieval writers. Jonson in Cynthia's Revels has 
seemingly used the excesses of Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics as 
equivalent to his humours, but to my mind there is to be detected 
here a stronger influence of Aristotle as already adapted in certain 
morality plays, Skelton's Magnificence first of all. 

A different phase of this intermixture of the classical and the 
medieval is interestiugly illustrated in Lodge's Wits Miserie, a 
work of some importance for Jonson. Here Lodge has grouped 
his devils as sons of the Seven Deadly Sins. The particular types 
portrayed, however, and the succinct analyses of them seem ob- 
viously influenced by the character sketches of Theophrastus, as 
well as by those common in the sixteenth century, such as the 
sketches of The Ship of Fools, the Fraternitye of Vacahondes, 
Code Lorelles bote. The Arte of Flatterie, etc. Indeed, it is prob- 
able, I think, that these medieval character sketches had their 
effect upon the classical sketch which played so prominent a part 
in the formal satire of Jonson's period. The typical epigram at 
the end of the century was oftenest a mere character sketch, though 
occasionally there was a sharp turn at the close. The satires of 
the period were also most frequently a mere series of these sketches. 
Thus the poetic character sketch exemplified in The Ship of Fools, 
The Hye Way to the Spyttel Rous, and many similar works, and 
even in Chaucer's Prologue, with their satirical purpose and their 
characteristic grouping, probably obtained a hold upon the people 
which would account in no small degree for the popularity of the 
type of epigram and satire just mentioned. 

I have already spoken of the influence of medieval allegory in 



The English Temper of Jonsons Work 29 

determining Jonson's character treatment in the humour plays. 
Jonson's work, indeed, shows a conscious bent toward the symbolic 
which connects him more readily with the medieval than with the 
classical. Not only are many of his characters abstractions, but 
his plays are often really allegorical — that is, their action is sym- 
bolical. Some of this allegory might have been suggested by 
classical literature, though even here there seems to me an evident 
influence of the sixteenth century morality. The allegory of money 
in Cynthia's Revels and The Staple of News may readily be traced 
to Aristophanes, as G-ifford has traced it; but English allegories 
of money are so numerous, some of them, like that of Piers the 
Plowman, are so brilliant, and many are so close to Jonson in time, 
that we can easily understand how a man of Jonson's English bent 
would be attracted to the theme. Other allegorical treatments 
show more truly his kinship with Renaissance didacticism or with 
the surviving morality. Such a treatment is that of the compass 
in The Magnetic Lady, which has some kinship with the pedagogi- 
cal allegories of the new learning. In Eastward Hoe, again, Jon- 
son, Chapman, and Marston, the masters of satiric comedy, seem 
to have been influenced to some extent by one of the most typical 
didactic themes of the Eenaissance, that of the Prodigal Son. Of 
all the moral allegories this is probably most distinctly a part of 
humanism and of the Reformation, for it enabled many writers, 
like G-ascoigne in his Glass of Government, to treat the ideal in 
education and character, setting it in contrast with the imperfec- 
tion of the prodigal. Still with Gascoigne and other dramatists 
the art and attitude in treating the subject is medieval. In Cyn- 
thia's Revels Jonson has made satiric use of another type of sym- 
bolism, which is somewhat akin to the allegory. Here the mytho- 
logical play is combined with devices of the court of love. The 
poetry of the court of love utilized mythological and allegorical 
characters as well as characters from life, and exhibited the same 
type of fancy that is to be seen in the mythological play of Lyly, 
which succeeded the allegorical play. While the great bulk of this 
literature belongs, of course, to chivalric and courtly love, many 
writers had used the machinery for satire, notably Jean de Meun 
in very early days. 

But, aside from the possible blending of classical and medieval 
influences, there are some aspects of Jonson's work that give it a 



30 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

flavor peculiarly medieval. There is still evident in his humour 
comedies, for instance, the influence of such works as The Ship of 
Fools and A Quartern of Knaves in determining the point of 
view for character treatment. The kinship lies chiefly in the 
method of treatment, in the presentation of fools, rogues, etc., in 
groups or companies, to be disposed of wholesale at the end, as it 
were. The typical endings for the humour plays seem to me to 
show the combined effect of the morality and The Ship of Fools 
conception. In the early humour comedies especially, all the char- 
acters receive proper punishment in connection with their over- 
throw ; but the final solution is not so much a reform as a banish- 
ment in shame that is visited on all. The vices at the end of the 
moralities are thus driven out of the scenes, and a not dissimilar 
conception exists in the ship load of fools setting out on a journey. 
At any rate, Marston in The Fawne adds to Jonson's method of 
exposing and shaming folly at the end, the device of sentencing 
the himiour types to the Ship of Fools. 

But it is the general spirit with which Jonson handles his char- 
acters that most distinctly reflects the medieval attitude and art. 
In what may be his first experiment in comedy, A Tale of a Tub, 
we find him dealing with clownish characters, and the higher and 
the lower social types are characterized alike with broad farce and 
burlesque. The point of view and the art in this method of char- 
acterization are typical of much of the English drama at the end 
of the sixteenth century in its treatment of native types, as I at- 
tempt to show later, and these figures naturally disappear in Jon- 
son's work, for the time at least, as the conception of humours 
takes full hold on him. But the spirit in which the humour types, 
and more especially the gulls, are treated connects them with the 
medieval fool of the Ship of Fools type, though the gulls present 
a more effective approach than the fools since as a class they are 
more definite and individual. In such early studies, also, as 
Brainworm and Shift there are traces of the picturesque medieval 
rogue, in spite of Brainworm's classic affiliations. More typically 
medieval is the coarseness with which Jonson's women are drawn. 
Classic writers are prone to satirize women lashingly, but Jonson's 
satire is different. His women show a coarseness, a vulgarity, a 
grossness, which is inherited from the fabliaux and from medieval 
realism in general, at a time when the crude form of living de- 



The English Temper of Jonsons Work 31 

veloped the coarsest types of men and women. Skelton's Elynour 
Rummyng is an extreme picture of the type, and the poem is the 
best example of the art of treatment. The attitude filtered through 
popular thought and lived on in humble life, appearing constantly 
in jest-books and folk-tales. This folk attitude to women as 
witches, shrews, and alewives, as coarse, vulgar, and sensual, re- 
veals itself continually in Jonson's work, and indicates his social 
inheritance and sympatliies. Ursula of Bartholomeiv Fair is Jon- 
son's grossest picture, but the witch of The Sad Shepherd and Tib 
of Every Man in his Humour are also folk types, while the nurse 
and the midwife of The Magnetic Lady, probably more indebted 
to literature, are treated with even more of the brutal realism of 
the folk feeling. It is not alone the hmnbler figures, however, that 
are stripped of all feminine charm and grace. Moria, one of the 
leading court ladies of Cynthia's Revels, Lady Politick Would-be of 
Volpone, the Ladies Collegiates of The Silent Woman. Lady Tail- 
bush and Lady Eitherside of The Devil is an Ass are all represented 
as sensual, coarse, and strident. In spite of their social leader- 
ship Jon son manages to impart to them an atmosphere of moral 
and physical foulness. The New Inn, again, shows his character- 
istic tendency. Lady Frampul, the mother of one of his most at- 
tractive heroines, is presented throughout the play in the disguise 
of "a poor chare-woman in the Inn, with one eye." The unneces- 
sary addition of a physical deformity even where there is no satire 
in the treatment seems to me characteristic of Jonson. There are 
exceptions, of course, for he does give us some heroines in all good 
faith, but it is noticeable that his women of the most virtuous 
type are shallow or at best not strongly characterized. The 
romantic figure of Eachel in The Case is Altered furnishes an ex- 
ample. Except in The Sad Shepherd Jonson scarcely shows a 
trace of the idealizing touch that belongs to the treatment of 
women in romance, a touch that the Eenaissance made vital. 

In matters pertaining more directly to literary technique, also, 
Jonson is a product of the English didactic school. The spirit of 
the bourgeois English has already been spoken of as bringing the 
English satirists nearer to -Juvenal than to the more urbane Horace. 
This was a natural result of what appears immediately to the most 
superficial reader in the English satirical school — its employment 
of direct rebuke and preaching, its bluntness and downrightness. 



32 English Elements in J onsen's Early Comedy 

In other words, English satire of the sixteenth century was didac- 
tic rather than literary. In this respect Jonson felt pretty fully 
the influence of the age, for the serious message, the polemics of 
reform, the direct and angry rebuke of evil, and the uncompromis- 
ing bluntness that belong to him as a middle-class Englishman 
spoil any lightness and play, any subtle mockery and laughing irony 
that we might expect from a genuine literary attitude to the ob- 
jects of satire. Invective and arraignment are dominant in Jon- 
son's work as in the age. 

The failure to use the more subtle instruments of literary satire 
is partly due to the slow development of English literary style, but 
this lack of development itself is largely a result of English di- 
rectness. Certainly the limitations of Jonson, trained classicist as 
he was and a follower of the best models, must be traced in no 
small part to his temper. A study of the classics would naturally 
lead a man of his type toward what is most readily perceived 
through the intellect and most readily analyzed. The fine sim- 
plicity, the artlessness of the supreme art, the imaginative 
spontaneity and grace in the portrayal of life, in short, the finest 
esthetic values of classic literature, seem to have escaped him as 
often as they did the classicists of the Eestoration and Queen 
Anne periods, while the rhetoric and mechanics of Latin litera- 
ture were readily caught by both. This estimate is perhaps not 
altooether fair to Jonson in view of the classic excellence of his 
best work in the lyric, in the epigram, in the masque, and in the 
drama. And yet I believe that he was influenced more by the ex- 
ternals than by the spirit of the best classic literature. 

The reasons for this, outside of the limitations of Jonson's own 
nature, are probably twofold. First, classic art was interpreted by 
Eenaissance criticism in terms of set academic rules, which neces- 
sarily dealt with externals and tended to make literature formal. 
Second, there was a still stronger influence of medievalism toward 
directness, formalism, and an intellectual art. The kinship of the 
two influences readily made them meet. This mechanical aspect 
of literary style in the sixteenth century and the quick recognition 
of the obvious rather than the feeling for the subtle are indi- 
cated in satire even by some divergences from the direct rebuke, 
for in most cases it is the form, the method, the particular de- 
vice for indirect satire that has attracted attention. Tiie funda- 



Tlie English Temper of Jonson's Work 33 

mental irony in a device like tlie Ship of Fools laid hold upon the 
period, as the nnmerous imitations of the title and mode of treat- 
ment suggest. Erasmus, especially, taught the age its finest lessons 
in irony. One of his most famous bits of irony is his Encomium 
Moriae. Again in "The False Knight" of his Colloquies advice is 
given to the knight to cultivate just what is most foolish and dis- 
gusting in life. This last bit of irony Jonson borrows completely 
in Every Man out of his Humour. This type of satire became, of 
course, most famous through GroManv^. Another popular form of 
irony — and possibly a more subtle one — lay in the use of the testa- 
ment, or will, on the principle of "like will to like."^ The best 
indication of Jonson's attitude to such formal devices for satire is 
derived from the fact that he read to Drummond "a Satyre, tell- 
ing there was no abuses to writte a satyre of, and [in] which he 
repeateth all the abuses in England and the World." That Jon- 
son should have taken such interest in the irony of denial, a sim- 
ple bit of form, as to employ it in what must have been a long 
poem, and to show such evident pride in the work as late as 1619 
is indicative enough of his attitude to literary st3'le and art. 

Jonson's connection with the native English tradition and the 
influence of English didactic literature upon him will be traced in 
more detail in the following chapters. It is hoped that here I 
have been able, without any real perversion of the many-sided Jon- 
son, to indicate the fundamental inclination of the man toward an 
intense Anglicism, and the result of this on his type of drama, his 
handling of characters, and his literary art in general. 

^Cf. Routh, Cambridge Hist. Eng. Lit., Vol. Ill, pp. 95-97. 



CHAPTER III 

A STUDY OF HUMOURS 

Jonson's celebrated definition of humour has fixed the meaning 
of the word for us in connection with the comedy of manners. As 
Jonson defines the term, it is fairly inclusive and may represent 
almost any decided moral inclination or mental attitude. Begin- 
ning with the broadest defuiition of the term in the physical sense, 
he proceeds to the figurative meaning of the word {Every Mom out, 
Induction, p. 6T) : 

Whatsoe'er hath fluxiire and humidity, 
As wanting power to contain itself. 
Is humour. So in every human body, 
The choler, melancholy, phlegm, and blood, 
By reason that they flow continually 
In some one part, and are not continent, 
Receive the name of humours. Now thus far 
It may, by metaphor, apply itself 
Unto the general disposition'^"''- 
As when some one peculiar quality 
Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw 
All his effects, his spirits, and his powers, 
In their confluctions, all to run one way. 
This may be truly said to be a humour. 

This derived meaning covers the pride and ambition of a 
Sejanus, the lust for conquest of a Tamburlaine, the thirst for sen- 
suous and forbidden knowledge of a Faust, the idolatry of gold in 
a Volpone or a Barabas, as well as the sensuous luxuriousness of 
an Epicure Mammon, the envy of a Macilente, the pride of a 
Fastidious Brisk, the impatience of a Downright, or the jealousy 
of a Kitely. The words ''as wanting power to contain itself" 
imply the essential defect in the character of one possessed of a 
humour, and other passages emphasize the abnormality of the 
humorist in the Jonsonian sense. Throughout the humour plays 
Jonson sets the balanced man as an ideal in contrast with the 
humorist. This contrast is voiced in Every Man in (II, 1, p. 16) 
when Kitelv savs of Wellbred: 



A Study of Humours 35 

My brother Wellbred, sir, I know not how, 

Of late is much declined in what he was, 

And greatly altered in his disposition. 

When he came first to lodge here in my house, 

Ne'er trust me if I were not proud of him: 

Methought he bare himself in such a fashion, 

So full of man, and sweetness in his carriage. 

And what was chief, it shewed not borrowed in him. 

But all he did became him as his own, 

And seemed as perfect, proper, and possest. 

As breath with life, or colour with the blood. 

But now his course is so irregular, 

So loose, affected, and deprived of grace, 



He makes my house here common as a mart, 

A theatre, a public receptacle 

For giddy humour, and diseased riot. 

In Cynthia's Revels, again, Mercury, in characterizing Crites, 
calls him "a creature of a most perfect and divine temper: one in 
whom the humours and elements are peaceably met, without emu- 
lation of precedency" (II, 1, p. 161). Then follows a long list of 
his excellences which contrast with the vices and follies of Jon- 
son's humorists. 

In his study of the so-called humour types, then, Jonson pre- 
sents the man whose moral and emotional nature lacks sanity, 
whose mental attitude exalts follies. Thus the fundamental con- 
ception of humour with Jonson is of something temperamental, 
something more or less permanent in character bent. This is 
what I shall call the Jonsonian use of the word humour. But 
Jonson has almost spoiled some of his plays by the effort to em- 
phasize in a more or less abstract way the mental and moral 
make-up of his characters; for in a drama of action much of the 
satire against evil ideas and evil ideals must take the form of 
satire against actions, social pursuits, dress, and so forth. In this 
definition Jonson excludes the use of humour to cover any such 
thing as a fad in dress, and in the mouth of Sogliardo he satirizes 
the use constantly, as Shakespeare does in The Merry Wives of 
Windsor. But it is the gallant's affectation of a humour through 
a fad in dress, etc. that Jonson objects to and satirizes in Sogli- 
ardo's spur as the "only humour," or Brisk's "stirring humours" 
[of vaulting]. Indeed, the use of the word to cover any fad or 



36 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

whimsicality had itself become a humour that called for rebuke 
from the satirist. Jonson does not seem entirely to have re- 
jected this use of the word until he came to Every Man out, and 
the large number of meanings that the term covers at the end of 
the century nearly all appear in Jonson's work. Humour is first 
of all used to express a trait of the inner man, but that trait itself 
is often symbolized by outward peculiarities and fashions that in 
their turn naturally come to have the name humour applied to 
them. In other words, both the inner and the outer manifesta- 
tions of the disposition may be signified by the term. 

A passage which Jonson added to the folio edition of Cynthia's 
Revels is very interesting in this connection (IV, 1, pp. 173, 174) : 

I would prove all manner of suitors, of all humours, and of all com- 
plexions, and never have any two of a sort. I would see how love, by 
the power of his object, could work inwardly alike, in a choleric man and 
a sanguine, in a melancholic and a phlegmatic, in a fool and a wise man, 
in a clown and a courtier, in a valiant man and a coward; and how he 
could vary outward, by letting this gallant express himself in dumb gaze; 
another with sighing and rubbing his fingers; a third, with play-ends and 
pitiful verses; a fourth with stabbing himself, and drinking healths, or 
writing languishing letters in his blood; a fifth, in coloured ribands and 
good clothes; with this lord to smile, and that lord to court, and the 
t'other lord to dote, and one lord to hang himself. And, then, I to have 
a book made of all this, which I would call tlie Book of Eumours, etc. 

This passage, pointing backward to the origin of the word, ex- 
emplifies Jonson's idea of the relation of humours to the physical 
man,^ and at the same time shows how very general may be the 
inward disposition indicated by the word humour and how varied 
and specific may be the particular customs or fads that make 
manifest a character tendency. It is obvious from this passage, 
also, that the use of the term humour for an outward manifesta- 
tion of a tendency will readily result in the extension of the term 
to the whim, fancy, or momentary inclination of whimsical and 
unstable characters, in other words, to just such a use of the term 
as Jonson satirizes. 

It is evident, then, that Jonson's program of humour study will 
be a varied one. It includes the treatment of Envy, Wrath, Drunk- 
enness, Avarice — indeed some phase of all the Seven Deadly Sins 

^It should be noticed, too, that Jonson here uses complexions as practi- 
callv svnonvmous with humours. 



A Study of Humours 37 

except perhaps Sloth. It deals with folly and ignorance, with 
manners and dress as indicative of character. In fact, all the 
vices, the follies, the manias, the fads and fashions of the day as 
indicative of mental or moral weakness are satirized, and humour 
is the term that Jonson uses to cover them all. 

Until recently the idea has been rather general that Jonson's 
most characteristic use of the word humour was new in the drama 
at any rate, and that the comedy of humours sprang full-grown 
from the brain of Jonson in Every Man in. As Fleay has pointed 
out, however, it is practically certain that An Humorous Day's 
Mirth preceded Every Man in. And yet it would be equally wide 
of the mark to give this one play of Chapman the credit for Jon- 
son's whole bent in the comedy of manners. The dominance of 
the idea of humours in Jonson's work is rather to be explained 
by the prevalence of the idea in the didactic literature belonging 
to the last twenty years of the sixteenth century, a body of litera- 
ture that exercised a very strong influence on his whole concep- 
tion of the function of comedy. Specifically, outside of An 
Humorous Day's Mirth, the influences that determined the use of 
the humour idea for Jonson were those of Lyly, Greene, Nashe, 
and Lodge, especially in their more serious prose. Here the word 
humour occurs with several meanings, as in Jonson, but the most 
characteristic meaning is the figurative one of Jonson's definition. 
Here, too, the characterization is of the sort typical with Jonson; 
one phase of a character, a vice or folly or fad, is stressed till it 
becomes dominant. These humours are studied in stories, as in 
Greene's numerous treatments of jealousy; in dramas, as in Lyly's 
Woman in the Moon; and in character sketches, as in Lodge's Wits 
Miserie and Nashe's Pierce Penilesse. It is especially in the 
character sketches of Nashe that the word humour is applied to 
an abnormal tendency. The character sketch of Jonson's type, 
however, is developed to its greatest perfection in Lodge's Wits 
Miserie. Moreover, just as the character sketch is an accompani- 
ment of the study of humours in this gi'oup of prose writers, the 
crystallization of Jonson's idea of humours comes along with his 
highest development of the character sketch; that is, both reach 
their zenith in Every Man out and Cynthia's Revels. 

But in order to understand the use of the word humour in the 
Elizabethan age, it may not be out of place, before discussing in 



38 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

greater detail these immediate predecessors of Jonson, to take up 
briefly the origin of the use of humour to represent what is tem- 
peramental and characteristic^ and to suggest the general causes 
that led to the prominence of the humour conception in the litera- 
ture of the end of the sixteenth century. I am not prepared to 
give any exhaustive study of the broadening use of the word, 
especially before the middle of the century, but the development of 
the Jonsonian use along with the shift from the study of abstract 
vices and follies to the study of human types near akin to them 
seems to me pretty definitely marked. 

In the fourteenth century humour is common enough in Eng- 
land as applied to the supposed fluid constituents of man's body. 
The conception of humours on the physical side led in medical 
science and in popular literature to an association of certain dis- 
positions and mental or nervous conditions with the preponderance 
of certain humours. We can readily see that humour to represent 
the mood or mental state supposedly caused by the preponderance 
of some physical humour is an easy extension of the use of the 
word as words expand in language. This use of humour in the 
transferred sense doubtless came in early, much earlier than I have 
been able to trace it. The earliest assured instance of it that is 
cited by the New English Dictionary is for the year 1525^ from 
Thoms's Anecdotes of Early English History (Camden Soc, p. 
11), and is given under the definition, "temporary state of mind 
or feeling; mood, temper." The passage reads : "Hacklewitt and 
another ... in a madde humour . . . coyted him downe 
to the bottome of the stayres." About 1565, we find illustrated the 
still more transferred meaning, "a particular disposition, inclina- 
tion, or liking, esp. one having no apparent ground or reason; mere 

^The first example cited by 2V. E. D. as figurative dates from about 1475, 
but it is probably not figurative after all, as Professor Manly pointed out 
to me. The passage, which is quoted under the meaning "mental dispo- 
sition," is from Quia Amove Langueo, Part II, a poem in Political, Relig- 
ious, and Love Poems (E. E. T. S., XV). As given in the 1903 edition 
of the E. E. T. S. volume, the passage reads in Lambeth MS. 853, 11. 53-55, 
as follows: 

^In my loue was neuere desaite, 

Alle myn humours y haue opened hir to, 
There my bodi hath maad hir hertis baite. 

The Cambridge Univ. MS. Hh. 4.12 has substituted membres for humours. 
The general sense of the passage and the substitution of memhres make 
it pretty clear that the word is used in the physical sense. 



A Study of Humours 39 

fancy, whim, caprice, freak, vagary." The example which the New 
English Dictionary cites is from Calfhill's Answer to J. Martiall's 
Treatise of the Cross, 1565, (Parker Soc, p. 94) : ''They neded 
no more for hallowing of a Church, but a sermon, and prayers, in 
which peradiienture (that I may feede your humor )^ tliey made 
the signe of a crosse with their finger." These and other mean- 
ings^ that developed later the New English Dictionary distin- 
guishes from the strict Jonsonian use, which it defimes as "mood 
natural to one's temperament; habitual frame of mind." In my 
own notes, which begin about the middle of the sixteenth century, 
it has not always seemed practical to make these distinctions, for 
the uses of the word humour to indicate a fairly permanent or 
distinctive quality all contribute to Jonson's conception. The first 
work in which I have found humour used freely in its derived 
sense dates from 1567; by 1580 the use of the word had become 
fairly widespread; and by 1592 humour seems to be the term most 
often chosen by the writers who deal with the follies of the time 
to indicate the inclination or moral weakness that leads to evil. 
The use of the word, indeed, increases in proportion to the atten- 
tion that is paid to the study of manners. 

Popular as the word humour was throughout two and a half 
centuries to represent a physical state invariably associated with a 
corresponding tendency of mind, it is surprising that the use of 
the word to represent the appropriate mental state itself developed 
as slowly as it did. In fact, as I have said, this use does not 
seem to have taken any very firm hold until well into the sixteenth 
century, or nearly two centuries after the physical conception of 
humour is revealed in Chaucer as a part of the thought of the age. 
The cause is probably two-fold. In the first place, as is often 
pointed out, the social class dominates over the individual in this 

^This expression had already become stereotyped. The phrase is used 
often in Fenton's Tragicall Discourses, 1567, and it occurs frequently in 
later writers, at times in the works of writers who do not use humour 
in any other combination. Jonson in Ev. M. in (III, 2, p. 31), after speak- 
ing of humour as bred by affectation and fed by folly, makes Cash add: 
"Oh ay, humour is nothing if it be not fed: didst thou never hear that? 
it's a common phrase, feed my humour." 

^The IV. E. D. gives, no doubt through a misprint, the date 1566 instead 
of 1656 for Cox's Acteon and Diana . . . folloioed iy the several con- 
ceited humours of Bumpkin, etc., a work whose title is used as the first 
illustration of humours in the plural to mean "moods or fancies exhibited 
in action," etc. 



40 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

early literature dealing with real life. Chaucer's character sketches 
analyze men, through the specific details of manners, on the basis 
of social class and trade, and do not generalize according to the 
inner nature of the man. Allegory, to be sure, was popular, but 
it dealt with abstract virtues and vices rather than with human 
types. It is clear, then, that the physical conception will not 
prevail in allegory; nor, in the treatment of actual men from the 
social point of view of class, will the vices and follies be tliose of 
temperament but of class. Naturally with the coming of the 
Eenaissance, especially with the study of Aristotle and Plato, the 
emphasis was shifted to quality in the individual. In the 
second place, to go a little further in the same process, so long as 
the whole individual was the unit, so to speak, there were other 
words more suitable to the conception than humour. One humour 
predominated and determined the inclination of the man, but one 
humour could not be separated from the rest, and temperament 
was a compound result. Two words, especially, complexion and 
temperament, were suited for this conception of the combination 
and regulation of the humours and elements. These words are 
common in Chaucer to represent the characteristic tendencies in a 
man's nature. Temperament we still retain with its indication 
of one's general nature. Complexion is frequent in Shakespeare 
to suggest disposition and mood, and Jonson also uses the word, 
as in the passage from Cynthia's Revels quoted above in connec- 
tion with humour. But, when the individual is subjected to dis- 
section, and the typical qualities become more prominent in the 
characterization of the moralities and the satiric literature of the 
Eenaissance, there results the stressing not of the combination of 
qualities but of the single dominant quality associated with the 
preponderance of one humour in the composition of the body. 

This association of the new conception of humour with a new 
conception of character treatment, that which combines the study 
of a type and the study of an abstract folly or vice, is not at 
all new of course. Courthope, in his History of English Poetry, 
stresses the connection between the morality and the Jonsonian 
comedy. Another statement of this connection is found in Gay- 
ley's Plays of our Forefathers. According to Professor Gayley, 
the characters in the moralities, though called by abstract names, 
are often from life, and each character has a motive of action to 



A Study of Humours 41 

distinguish it from tlie rest. "This kind of play is, therefore, the 
forerunner of Ben Jonson's comedy of humours" (p. 298). 
Again, Professor Gayley says that Haphazard of Appius and Vir- 
ginia is "a Vice of the old type; but he is, also, the representative 
. . . of the caprice of the individual and the irony of for- 
tune. He is the Vice, efficient for evil, but in process of evolu- 
tion into the Inclinations or Humours of a somewhat later period 
of dramatic history: conceptions not immoral but unmoral, 
artistic impersonations of comic extravagance, where Every Man 
is in his Vice and every Vice is but a Humour"^ (pp. 303 f. Cf. 
also p. 314). What we really see, then, in this new development 
in the treatment of types is the bringing of vices and follies home 
to men and women by the greater nearness to actual life, by the 
concreteness and individualization that the abstractions take on. 
It is this side of medieval literature that influenced Jonson most 
strongly in his conception of comedy and of the types appropriate 
to it.2 

The new conception of character treatment, then, as I have in- 
dicated above, calls for a constant study of the nature of men and 
women. Analysis of character with the fixing upon some domi- 
nant mental or moral trait is found in Greene, Xashe, Lodge, 
Lyly, Spenser, and Marlowe. Along with the philosopbical study 
of man went the physical, and the two were not dissociated; but, 
as the qualities of character were associated with the physical 
qualities of man, the physiological side plays, I believe, a greater 
part than the psychological in the thought of the age with re- 
gard to mankind. In fact, during the latter half of the sixteenth 

^Inclination, almost synonymous with Humour, as Prof. Gayley recog- 
nizes, is the Vice of Trial for Treasure. Compare "Inclination the Vise" 
of Sir Thomas More. See p. 306 of Prof. Gayley's book for the spirit of 
comedy in Trial for Treasure. 

-It is very interesting to find Wager in the prologue to Tlie Longer 
thou Liuest, the more Foole thou art, just as literature is fastening most 
firmly on individual vices and follies, forestalling, much in Jonson's spirit, 
any charge of attack on individuals :- 

By him we shall declare the vnthriftie abuse 
Of such as had leuer to Folly and Idlenes fall, 
Then to iierken to Sapience when he doth call: 
There processe, how their whole life they do spende, 



But, truly, we meane no person perticularly, 
But only to specifie of such generally. 



42 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

century, the whole thought of life is colored hy the influence of 
the physical conceptions current at the time and taking a still 
greater hold upon men as the range of studies became broader 
and interest in the mysteries of life keener. The thought and 
language of the age were impregnated with the thought and lan- 
guage of the physical sciences, especially the science of medicine, 
exactly as the literature of the nineteenth century has been uni- 
versally influenced in theon^ and expression by the scientific con- 
ceptions of evolution. 

An indication of the interest in medicine is seen in the great 
number of medical tracts appearing in English during the six- 
teenth century.^ Elyot's Castle of Health and the works of 
Boorde, Bullein, Eecorde, and A^icar}- were especially well known. 
Eullein's Dialogue against the Fever Pestilence reveals a physi- 
cian studying the diseases of society along with his study of the 
pestilence, and the social evils are of primary interest. The 
physician Rabelais in France was one of the great anatomists of 
life and its evils, and his influence penetrated to England early. 
The ideas and the language of such works were speedily reflected 
in the literary treatment of life. As the didactic purpose of 
much of the contemporary literature is indicated in the frequent 
use of the word mirror, so the analytic tendency finds expression 
in the various titles that use anatomy.- The interesting fact in 
connection with the popularity of these titles is that they are 
used by the very men who apparently influenced Jonson most 
in his early life, and gave him his conception of humour — Lyly, 

K'f. the list in The Cambridge Hist. Eng. Lit., Vol. Ill, pp. 560, 561. 
It could probably be greatly extended. 

"The most notable works embodying the idea in their titles are given by 
Mr. McKerrow ( Works of Nashe, Vol. IV, p. 3 ) : Anthony de Adamo, An 
Anatomi, that is to say a parting in peeces of the Mass, 1556; Rogers, 
A phiJosophicall Discourse, entituled. The Anatomic of the Minde, 1.576; 
Lyly, Eiiphues. The Anatomy of Wyt, 1579 ; Stubbes, The Anatomie of 
Abuses, 1583; Greene, The Anatomie of Lovers Flatteries, an appendix to 
Mamillia, 1583; Greene, A maruelous Anatomie of Saturnistes, a part of 
Planetomachia, 1585; Greene, Arbasto, The Anatomie of Fortune, 1584; 
Nashe, The Anatomie of Absurditie, 1589. Compare also Gascoigne, "The 
Anatomye of a Louer," 1575, {Poems, ed. Hazlitt, Vol. I, p. 35) ; Valour 
Anatomized, doubtfully ascribed to Sidney (cf. D. N. B.) • Harington, 
Anatomie of the Metamorphosed Ajax, 1596; Maroccus Extaticus. Or, 
Banlces Bay Horse in a Tranee . . . Anatomizing some abuses and bad 
trickes of this age, 1595: "The Anatomie of Alchymie," Epistle VII of 
Lodge's Fig for Momus, 1595. The word anatomy was equally popular in 
titles during the early part, at least, of the seventeenth century. 



A Study of Humours 43 

Greene, and l^ashe. In Asper's statement of his satiric purpose 
in the induction to Every Man out, Jonson himself uses both 
mirror and anatomy together with scourge, the word most sug- 
gestive of the attitude of the formal satirists (cf. p. 151 infra). 
Moreover, much of the literature of the time shows an acquaint- 
ance with medical lore. Medical writers are quoted; ISTashe and 
Greene and other writers draw more or less on medicine for terms 
and figures. The physician occurs in Jonson's Magnetic Lady, 
and there is much medical jargon in the play, as for instance in 
the purge for a purse prescribed for Sir Moth Interest (III, 4). 
More to the point is the fact that in the early plays Jonson often 
uses figures from medicine in analyzing character. In Every Man 
in (II, 1, p. 19) jealousy is discussed as a disease: 

Like a pestilence, it doth infect 
The houses of the brain. First it begins 
Solely to work upon the phantasy, 
Filling her seat with such pestiferous air, 
As soon corrupts the judgment; and from thence, 
Sends like contagion to the memory: 
Still each to other giving the infection. 
Which as a subtle vapour spreads itself 
Confusedly through every sensive part. 
Till not a thought or motion in the mind 
Be free from the black poison of suspect. 



Well, I will once more strive, 
In spite of this black cloud, myself to be, 
And shake the fever off that thus shakes me. 



Here we have a distinct humour in the Jonsonian sense treated 
from the point of view of bodily disease. Jonson^s analysis is true 
to the belief of the time that from the humours certain fumes or 
vapours arose, and passing to the brain, aSected the mind.^ To 
be associated doubtless with this very idea of vapours arising from 
humours as determining the sanity of men is the use of vapours 

^Cf. Ev. M. in, II, 1, p. 17. Astrological conceptions also play their 
part in the idea of humours, as in Greene's works. See Englische ^tudien, 
Vol. 40, pp. 332 ff. for the physiological conception of spirits and the con- 
tinuance in the drama and in late seventeenth century literature of this 
idea. Cf. Dowden, "Elizabethan Psychology" in The Atlantic Monthly, 
Vol. 100, pp. 388 ff., for a review of the whole field to which these con- 
ceptions belong; see also Greenough and Kittredge, Words and their Ways, 
pp. 30 ff. 



44 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

in Bartliolomeio Fair and elsewhere to indicate a peculiar form of 
quarreling and ranting. The term seems to denote a popular fad 
of certain classes^ as humours did, and doubtless came from medi- 
cal science. Naturally, also, in close connection with the idea of 
humours which had taken such a hold upon the age in its study 
of man physically and mentally, went the purge, the recognized 
medical treatment for excess of humour. It is needless to quote 
examples from Jonson, whose whole treatment is illustrative and 
who constantly uses the term, as in "purge of purse" above. The 
purging of humours is especially conspicuous, of course, in the 
final adjustment at the close of the early humour comedies. 

A curious side of this anatomical and humour lore is to be 
found in some odd conceits of the sixteenth century. In Crowley's 
One and Thirty Epigrams, 1550, "Of Vayne Wryters, Vaine Talk- 
ers, and Vaine Hearers" (E. E. T. S., e". S., No. 15, 11. 1389 S.), 
we are told how the writer's head is opened and the talker stirs his 
brains with a stick. Examples from Nashe,^ especially from his 
controversial works, are numerous, and several of them go to show 
that, though Jonson's use of the purge in Poetaster was derived 
from Lucian, such concrete representations on the stage were 
not without precedent in the English drama. In The Returne of 
Pasquill (Works, ed. McKerrow, Vol. I, p. 92), there is mention 
of an old play in which Divinity had been "poysoned . . 
with a vomit which he [^Martin'] ministred vnto her, to make 
her cast vppe her dignities and promotions." A passage a few 
pages farther on (p. 100) reads: "This [Vetus Comcedia] is 
she that called in a counsell of Phisitians about Martin, and 
found by the sharpnes of his hu?nour, when they had opened the 
vaine that feedes his head, that bee would spit out bis lunges 
within one yere." In A Counlercuffe giuen to Martin lunior 
(Works, Vol. I, p. 59), we have a reference to "the Anotamie 
latelie taken of him [Martin'], the blood and the humors that 
were taken from him, by launcing and worming him at London 
vpon the common Stage." In Strange Neives, Nashe says of 
Harvey (Works, Vol. I, p. 295) : 

^In Vol. V, pp. 34-65 of his Works of Nashe, Xr. McKerrow throws con- 
siderable doubt on Nashe's authorship of any of the Martin Marprelate 
tracts that are usually ascribed to him. 



A Study of Humours 45 

The tickling and stirring inuectiue vaine, the puffing and swelling Satiri- 
call spirit came vpon him, as it came on Coppinger and Arthington, when 
they mounted into the pease-cart in Cheape-side and preacht: needes hee 
must cast vp certayne crude humours of English Hexameter Verses that 
lay vppon his stomacke; a Noble-man stoode in his way, as he was vomit- 
ing, and from top to toe he all to berayd him with Tuscanisme. 

The age, then, was full of the ideas of medicine, and humours 
especially struck the fancy of writers. As humour had already 
acquired its various figurative meanings, it is easy to see how this 
interest in medical lore caused a continually widening use of the 
word. I have shown, I think, how naturally the word may have 
developed its various meanings in England itself, and how much 
a part of the age was the interest in humours; it remains to show 
definitely the development of the Jonsonian use at the end of the 
sixteenth century through such writers as Fenton, Lyly, Greene, 
N"ashe, and Lodge. 

First, however, it is necessary to note that Professor Spingam 
(Literary Criticism in the Renaissance, pp. 88, 89) would trace 
this use of the term to Italy, connecting it with the conception of 
character treatment which according to him grew largely out of 
the Eenaissance idea of decorum. As evidence he cites Salviati's 
definition of humour (in Del Trattato delta Poetica, a MS. lec- 
ture of about 1586) as "a peculiar quality of nature according to 
which every one is inclined to some special thing more than to 
any other." But the use of the derived meanings of humour in 
England much earlier than the manuscript lecture of Salviati, the 
presence of forces that would naturally tend to develop such a 
use, and finally the great vogue of the idea in England toward 
the close of the century render it improbable that Italy is to be 
held responsible for the conception. Professor Spingarn's view 
neglects these important phenomena. Indeed, both the concep- 
tion of humours and the corresponding treatment of character 
may well have been independent of foreign influences, though 
doubtless Italian and classic ideas had the effect of crystallizing 
native tendencies. It must be remembered that, after the first 
impulse had been received, the Eenaissance spirit often worked 
alike in different countries of Europe without any necessary de- 
pendence of one literature upon another, for all Europe was feel- 
ing the same impulses and finding in classic literature the same 



46 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

sources of inspiration, releavening the medieval thought, which in 
itself had been akin throughout Europe. And this may be said 
without forgetting the great indebtedness of all Europe to Italy. 
My own purpose is to trace the rise of the humour conception 
in England, and I have paid rather slight attention to the ulti- 
mate source except as it may be English. Since, however, the 
first work in which I have found the term humour used freely is 
The Tragicall Discourses of Fenton, a series of stories derived 
from Bandello through the French of Belleforest, a word seems 
necessary in regard to the possible foreign influence on Fenton's 
use of humour. The Italian of Bandello is not accessible to me, 
but, as Fenton himself says that he translated from the French 
(Tragicall Discourses, Tudor Translations, Vol. I, p. 7), there 
is no especial reason to believe that the Italian originals of his 
stories influenced him directly. In this work of Fenton, which 
appeared in 1567, humour is employed rather constantly in a 
sense not differing greatly from Jonson's. Indeed, humour is 
such a favorite with Fenton that often he adds to his original a 
passage of which it is the central word and conveys the central 
idea. Belleforest in the Histoires Tragiques, from which Fenton 
drew his stories, uses humeur occasionally, but too rarely to ac- 
count for Fenton's fondness for the word. 

In order to compare Fenton's work with Belleforest's in this 
respect, I have chosen as typical of Fenton Discourses I, II, IV, 
and VII. Jealousy is treated in the fourth discourse, and the 
word humour is frequently applied to it. The seventh is the 
famous "'Countess of Celant" story. In these four discourses of 
Fenton, humour is used figuratively about thirty-five times. In 
the corresponding stories of Belleforest (numbers 21, 22, 10, and 
20 respectively), humeur occurs three times with what approaches 
a figurative meaning, but the three uses are practically alike. 
The first of these examples is found in the following passage, 
which is not translated by Fenton: "Plein de quelque humeur 
melancholique, qui luy trouble le cerueau."^ Thus only in two 
cases could Belleforest have suggested to Fenton the derived use 
of the word humour during the course of these four stories. 

^Belleforest, Histoires Tragiques, Rouen, 1603, Vol. I, p. 417. Compare 
Fenton, Trag. Disc, Vol. I, pp. 177, 178. 



A Study of Humours 47 

Moreover, in both of those cases Fenton employs the word in a 
way that is far more suggestive of the Jonsonian application to 
disposition or inclination. Belleforest evidently conceives of the 
physical humour as affecting the mental state, but in none of the 
three examples does humeur stand for the disposition or inclina- 
tion itself. What seems to be with Fenton a constant tendency 
to look at character from the point of view of an inclination or a 
primary quality of disposition is indicated by the change he has 
made in translating the two passages in which both he and Belle- 
forest use humour. Belief orest's "I'humeur, qui brouillassoit la 
raison" (Vol. I, p. 419) becomes in Fenton "the disposition 
. . . overcharged wyth a mad humor of wrong coneeites'^ 
(Vol. I, pp. 179, ISO), where the word disposition gives the idea 
a new significance, and humour becomes much more figurative in 
application. Again, in "manie, procedant d'vne humeur trop 
melancholique" (Vol. II, p. 204), Belleforest uses humeur in 
practically the physical sense, though with a suggestion of the in- 
fluence on character; but Fenton's translation — "humor of mad- 
nes, proceding of a vaine braine" (Vol. I, p. 88) — transfers 
humour to the phrase indicating mental state and so gives the 
word far greater significance for disposition or character bent. 

The significance of the word humour in Fenton's interpreta- 
tion of character, and his fondness for expanding his original by 
the addition of phrases containing the word will appear from the 
following parallels between Belleforest and Fenton: 

Fenton, Tragicall Discourses Belleforest, Histoires Tragiques 

For yf the desyre of thy Title Si tu n'eusse encor ce petit do- 

livynge in the countrey, and glister- maine que tu as aux cha«)ps & 

Inge shewe of thy greate house ceste spacieuse maison en ville, per- 

. . . had not sturred up the cov- sonne n'eust enuig ton estat (Vol. 

etous humour of that ravenouse II, p. 146). 
marchaunte (Vol. I, p. 33). 

For how canne a man lay a more Et quelle plus grande gloire pent 

sewer foundation of perpetuall acquerir I'homme qu'en vainquant 

glorye, then in correctinge the hu- soy mesme, & chastiant ses affec- 

moure of hys fowle appetite and tions (p. 157). 
conquerynge the unbridled affec- 
tions of the wilful mind (p. 40). 



48 



English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 



Wherin, I fedd tlie hongry humor le me consumoy de sorte, que 

of my affection with sucli alarams perdant I'appetit, etc. (p. 195). 
and contraryetie of conceites, that 
havinge by thys meane loste the 
necessary appetite of the stomake, 
etc. (p. 76). 

And he that in the choice of his 
wyfe respectes chiefiye her beautie 
and greatnes of porcion . . . es- 
capeth seldom without a sprit of 
grudge or cyvill discension disturb- 
ynge hys quiet, wyth a continual! 
humour of frettynge disposition 
feedynge hys mynde (pp. 79, 80). 

How can he be acquited from an 
humor of a frantike man, who, etc. 
(p. 164). 

Wherin he suffered himselfe to 
be so much subject and overcome 
with the rage of this foUie, that, 
according to the jelowse humor of 
th' Ytalyan, lie thoughte every man 
that loked in her face, etc. (p. 176). 

Neyther hath this folyshe luimor 
of jelowsy so much power to enter 
into the hart of the vertuous and 
wise man; who neyther wyll give 
his wife such cause to abuse her- 
selfe towardes hym, nor suspect her 
wythout great occasyon (p. 177). 

Four of Fenton's stories are also translated by Painter in his 
Palace of Pleasure, and it is interesting to study the difference 
between the two translations in regard to the use of humour. The 
stories are Discourses I, VII, XI, and XIII of The Tragicall Dis- 
courses, corresponding, according to the original edition, to num- 
bers XXX, XXIV, XXVII, and XXIX, respectively, in the Sec- 
ond Tome of Tlir Palace of Pleasure. In Fenton's translation 
of these stories, humour occurs in the transferred sense at least 
twenty-five times; in Painter's, the word does not occur at all ex- 



II n'echape gueres souuent le 
malheur qu'vn esprit de dissention 
ne se brouille parmy leur mesnage 
(p. 198). 



Mais qui seroit ce fol, que vou- 
droit, etc. (Vol. I, p. 406). 

Fut si estrange sa folie, qu'il luy 
sembloit que tons ceux qui la re- 
gardent, etc. (p. 406). 



Le vertueux & prudent homme ne 
soupconnera iamais rien sans vne 
preuue euidente (p. 417). 



A Study of Humours 



49 



cept in the physiological sense.^ Two of these stories I have 
already compared with Belleforest's versions and have found that 
in the French humour is not used at all except in a physiological 
sense. Some parallel passages taken from the "Countess of 
Celant" story in Belleforest, Painter, and Fenton will show the 
relation of the three with regard to the interest in humours. 



Belleforest 
Cogiioissant son in- 
II, p. 



clination (Vol. 
76). 

Ces Mantoiians 



qui 



Painter 

Knowing hir inclina- 
tion (Vol. Ill, ed. 
Jacobs, p. 45). 

The Mantuanes, 



Fenton 

Not ignorant of the 
humor of her inclina- 
tion (Vol. II, p. 4). 

The Mantuans, whose 



ont tousiours quelque whose suspicious heads heades are the common 



martel 

83). 



en teste? (p. 



Le Comte 
batant les buissons, 
tandis que la proye 
estoit preste a sortir, 
luy dit (p. 86). 



are ful of hammers 
working in the same? 
(pp. 49, 50). 

The Counte . . . 



fordge whereupon the 
humour of frettynge 
jelousye doth alwaies 
beate? (p. 11). 
Th'erle . . 



beating the Bushes fedynge the humor of 
vntill the praye was his fortune, judged yt 



ready to spryng, re- 
plyed (p. 51). 



De mesme se resolut 
d'y mettre ordre, & luy 



Whereuppon hee re- 



no point of good hus- 
bandry to loase his 
frute . . . but 
beatinge the bushe as 
the birde was readie to 
go oute, recharged her 
with seconde admon- 
ishement (p. 14). 

Wherefore, he ac- 



fermer le pas auant and stop hir passage 
qu'elle eust gaigne la before she had won the 



solued to take order compted it an acte of 
wisedom, to take up 



campagne (p. 89), 



field (p. 53). 



the vaine that fedd 
those humours, and 
stop her course afore 
she gained the plaine 
feelde (p. 16). 

Saith he . . . 
feedyng her luimour 
wyth franke wordes, 
dissimulynge, notwith- 
standynge, that which 
he thought (p. .34). 

^Cf. Jacobs's edition, Vol. Ill, pp. 172, 178, 229, 316 for this use. With 
the last passage compare the corresponding one in Fenton (Vol. I, p. 65), 
where humour is used in the same sense. 



Toutesfois parloit-il Notwithstandyng, he 
au plus loin de ce qu'il sayde more than he 



en pensoit (p. 107] 



ment to do (p. 63] 



50 



English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 



Ce ieune Comte 
. . . se retira de 
ceste emprise, & osta de 
sa teste toute I'aflfec- 
tion amoureuse . . 
Et a fin qii'il n'eust oc- 
casion de s'y amuser, & 
que la presence ne le 
surprist dereclief, & ne 
le rendist encor povir- 
suyuant de celle qui 
I'auoit requis & pour- 
suyui, il se retire a 
Milan (p. 108). 



The yong Earle 
forbai'e ap- 
proche vnto hir house, 
and drovie out of his 
heade al the Amorous 
affection. . . . And 
to the ende he might 
liaue no cause to 
thinke vpon hir, or 
that his presence 
should make hym 
slaue againe to hir 
that first pursued him, 
he retired in good 
time to Millan ( p. 
64). 



The erle 
checked the humour of 
hys accustomed desyer. 
. . . And because he 
woulde aswell remove 
the cause as take awaye 
the disease, ferynge 
leaste eyther the viewe 
of her presence, or 
some force of newe 
charme, mighte efte- 
sones enchante hym 
and sett abroche the 
humor of former de- 
syers, he retired imme- 
diatlye to Myllan (p. 
36). 



These passages indicate Fenton's predilection for the word 
hnmour and at the same time the number of shaded meanings 
that the word has for him.^ The very fact, also, that he has 
often wrested the wording of his original in order to bring in 
hnmonr, suggests his tendency to interpret character from the 
point of view of medieval science. Moreover, his attitude to his 
material seems to he more consciously analytic, didactic, and 
moral than Belleforest's, despite Belleforest's, or rather, perhaps, 
Bandello's, love for pointing a moral. Fenton's especial impor- 
tance for Jonson, indeed, lies not in his use of humour alone, 
but in his use of the word along with a seriousness of purpose 
and a conception of character that connect him with Jonson. 
Fenton's Epistle Dedicatory to Lady Mary Sidney proclaims the 
seriousness of his message, and also suggests strongly a program 
of humours. After declaring that his purpose in selecting the 
stories for translation has been to present examples of virtue to 
be followed and of vice to be shunned, Fenton continues {Tragi- 
call Discourses, Vol. T, pp. 7-9) : 

My seconde endevor was bent to observe the necessitie of the tjane; 
chiefly for that, uppon the viewe and examples of oure auncesters lyves, 
the fraile ymps of this age maye finde cause of shame in theyr owne 

^Besides the passages that I quote, these six stories from Fenton show 
the use of humour on the following pages: Vol. T, pp. 23, 24, 37, 38. 4.5, 
55, 77, 89, 90, 92, 110, 126, 128, 180, 184, 190; Vol. II, pp. 6, 174, 
189, 239, 247, 259, 267, 291. 



A Study of Humours 51 

abuses . . . the Historians of olde tyme (in theyr severall recordes 
of the actes, conquestes, and noble attemptes, of Princes and greate men) 
have lefte oute nothynge servyng for the ornamente and institution of 
mannes lyfe; not forgettynge to sett oute also in naturall coollers theyr 
tyrannye, and other vices, vi^ythe contempte of vertue . . . they allure, 
by traines of familyaritye, every succession, to embrace and beholde, as 
in a glasse, the undoubted meane that is hable, and wyll, brynge theym 
to . . . perfection in vertue. Whyche, also, moved me to use a 
speciall discrecion in coollynge oute suche examples as beste aggreed wyth 
the condicion of the tyme,^ and also vrere of moste freshe and familyar 
memorye; to the ende that, wyth the delyte in readynge my dedication, 
I maye also leave, to all degrees, an appetitt and honeste desyere to honor 
vertue and holde vice in due detestation. And, albeit, at the firste sighte, 
theis discourses maye importe certeyne vanytyes or fonde practises in love, 
yet I doubte not to bee absolved of suche intente by the judgement of the 
indifferent sorte, seinge I have rather noted diversitie of examples in 
sondrye younge men and women, approvynge sufhcientlye the inconvenience 
happenynge by the pursute of lycenceous desyer, then affected in anye 
sorte suche uncerteyne follyes. For heare maye bee scene suche patternes 
of chastetye, and maydes so assured and constant in vertue, that they 
have not doubted rather to reappose a felicitye in the extreme panges of 
death then to fall by anye violent force into the daunger of the fleshelye 
ennemye to theyr honour. In lyke sorte appeareth here an experience 
of wounderfull vertues in men; who, albeit hadd power to use and com- 
mande the thinge they chieflye desyered, yet, bridlynge wythe maine hande, 
the humour of theyr inordinate luste, vanquished all mocions of sen- 
sualytye, and became maisters of theym selves, by abstaynynge from that 
whereunto they felte provocation by nature. Who desyereth to see the 
foUye of a foolishe lover, passionynge hymselfe uppon creditt, the impu- 
dencie of a maide, or other woman, renouncynge the vowe of her fayth 
or honor due to virginitie, the sharpp pennance attendynge the rashe 
choice of greate ladyes in seekynge to matche in anye sorte wythe degrees 
of inferior condicion; or who wisheth to bee privie to th' inconveniences 
in love, howe he frieth in the flame of the fyrste affection, and after, 
groweth not onelye colde of himselfe, but is easelye converted into a 
contrarye shapp and disposition of deadlye hate — maye bee heare assisted 
wyth more than double experience touchinge all those evills. . . . And 
who takes pleasure to beholde the fyttes and panges of a frantique man, 
incensed to synister conceites by the suggestion of frettynge jelouzye, 
forcynge hym to effectes of absolute desperation; the due plage of dis- 
loyaltye, in both kyndes, Avith the glorye of hym wiio marcheth under the 
enseigne of a contrarye vertvie; a man of the churche, of dissolute lyving, 
punished with publike reproche; or the villenie of the greedye usurer, 

^With this expression and the similar one in the first line of this quota- 
tion from Fenton compare Jonson's demand that literature be "after the 
fancie of the tyme" (p. 8 supra). ^ 



52 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

makyng no conscience to preferr oppen perjury in suppressynge tli' inno- 
cent cause, — maye fynde here to satisfye his longynge at full. ... I, 
with the tormentes that pinched here suche as labored in a passion of 
follye and fond desyer, maye worke a terror to all those that hereafter 
unhappelye syp of the cupp of suche ragynge infection. 

This rather full quotation sets forth Fenton's general plan and 
shows his accord with the didactic purpose of literature in his 
age. He chooses examples that fit "the condicion of the tyme," 
and his purpose is to reform men, to bring them out of their evil 
humours. To a much greater extent than Jonson he sets the ideal 
beside the evil; and both men represent the punishment of vices. 
The program, for the treatment of life which Fenton here puts 
before himself is much like Jonson's, and many evils that would 
come under the head of humours are included. The term humour 
occurs in the quotation only once, and then is applied to lust as a 
provocation of nature, a sense much nearer to the physical meaning 
than the ordinary use but agi'eeing with Jonson's definition. Other 
words are also used indicative of the inclination of men to vice 
and folly; as, disposition, condition, motion, provocation of nature, 
infection. 

More significant for Fenton's conscious choice of the word hu- 
mour in connection with the treatment of character is the way in 
which he has translated the arguments of the stories. These argu- 
ments give, not the gist of the story, but the theme and the moral, 
and^ as each story is a study of an inclination or a vice, Fenton 
has. naturally had many opportunities to add the word humour. 
Indeed, some of the vices and follies mentioned in the Epistle 
Dedicatory are here called humours by Fenton.^ One of the most 
interesting of these arguments is that of Discourse II, which con- 
tains an elaborate comparison of the bodily humours with the in- 
clinations of the mind.- The comparison suggests that in Jon- 

^The moralizing openings, or sommaircs, of the separate stories in the 
Histoires Tragiques, which Fenton in translating has called arguments, 
often show a close kinship in ideas to the Epistle Dedicatory of The 
Tragicall Discourses ; so that, even if the original may not explain Fen- 
ton's use of humour, the critical opinions of Bandello doubtless did have 
an influence on Fenton's ideals. 

-Here even Belleforest uses hwmeur in a more or less figurative sense. 
The passage in which the word occurs is one of the two discussed above 
(p. 47 ) . The other uses of humour which I quote from the arguments 
have been added by Fenton. 



A Study of Humours 53 

son's definition, and the arsfunient closes with a conception akin to 
Jonson's famous conception of the mental state tliat produces evil. 

Meates . . . albeit . . . good of theimselves, yet, being swal- 
lowed in glottonous sorte, they do not only procure a surfeyt with un- 
savery indisgestion, but also, converting our auncient healthe and force 
of nature into humors of debylytie destillinge thorowe all the partes of 
the bodye, do corrupte the blodde which of itselfe afore was pure and 
without infection. Even suche is the disposition of love, whose eiTectes, 
directed by reason ... be not suche enemies indeede to the quiet 
of our lyfe, as necessary meanes to reforme the rudenes of our owne 
nature. . . . But who . . . without advise or judgemente, will 
throwe himselfe hedlonge into the golphe of a folishe and conning phan- 
tasye, escapes hardly without the rewarde whiche that frantike passion 
yeldeth ordenarely to suche as are unhappelye partakers of suche infec- 
tion. 

Then, after mentioning such examples of uncontrolled passions as 
ought to teach men "to restraine the humor of their owne madnes," 
Fenton adds : 

With what enamel so ever they seke to guild and colour such vices, 
yet can they not be excused of an humor of madnes, proceding of 
a vaine braine, exposing frutes according to the spirit or guide that 
possesseth them. 

The following are some additional examples of Penton's use of 
humour in the arguments prefixed to the discourses: 

How can he be acquited from an humor of a frantike man, who, 
without any cause of offence in the world, committes cruel execution 
upon his innocente wife [through jealousy] (Vol. I, p. 164). 

I have preferred this example of an Italian countesse, who, so long as 
her first husband (not ignorant of the humor of her inclination) [to 
lust], etc. (Vol. 11, p. 4). 

Amongest all the passions which nature sturreth up to disquiet the 
mind of man, there is none of such tyrany or kepes us more in awe then 
the detestable humor of covetousnes, and raging appetyt of whoredome 
{iUd., p. 130). 

Albeit he was yoimge, ful of wanton humors, and nothing degenerat- 
ing from th' Ytalyan inclynacion touching the desier of the fleshe, etc. 
(p. 131). 

Checked the humor of his former apetit [of lust] (p. 132). 

For, albeit the sondrie enormities growing daily amongest us by the 
unbridled humour of oure affection, which we commonly cal love, argue 
the same to bee a passion of moste daungerous and perverse corrupcion, 
etc. (p. 214). 



54 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

Albeit it [love] be an infection of it selfe, yet it serves also as a con- 
trepoison to drive out another venym . . . not meaning for all this 
to perswade that it is of necessitie we make ourselves subject altogether 
to this humor of good and evill disposicion (p. 214). 

Th' experience is not straunge, nowe a dayes, what humor of rage doth 
directe our fraile youth, governed by the planet of love (p. 238). 

Fenton's use, then, is clearly anticipatory of Jonson's. The fact 
that Fenton restricts himself ahnost entirely to a study of love 
narrows his field, but the various phases of the passion — love, Inst, 
jealous}'' — are several times spoken of as humours. Jonson calls 
love a humour in The Case is Altered (II, 2), and in the passage 
quoted above (p. 36) from Cynthia's Revels Phantaste discusses 
in detail the phases of the humour love. Lust is handled rather 
sparingly in Jonson, hut appears in Volpone and Epicure Mam- 
mon. Jealousv Jonson constantly treats as a humour, dealing 
with it in Kitely, Corvino, and Fitzdottrel, in Corvino, at least, 
with almost tragic force. Not only the narrowness of Fenton's 
lield but his bent toward the tragic make comparison with Jon- 
son difficult. Fenton's program of the tendencies to be repre- 
hended includes much more serious evils than Jonson's. Humour 
with the translator of TJie Tragicall Discourses carries no comic 
significance, the inclination being considered so forceful a passion 
as to call for the terms madness, rage, etc. But in intention and 
conception Fenton's attitude to character and his treatment of 
humours is practically the same as that indicated by Jonson's 
definition. There are some distinctions to be made, however, in 
the use of the word. Fenton does not give the term humour so 
broad a significance as Jonson does, having seemingly the physical 
side always closely associated with it. Hence it is that with Fen- 
ton diseas.e, infection, and similar terms are more frequently syn- 
onyms of humour than in later writers. Fenton, for instance, 
certainly thinks of actual bodily humours wdien he says, "Love is 
an humor of infection derived of the corrupte partes in our 
selves" (Vol. I, p. 89). The examples which I have quoted show 
that he does not wander far from this physical meaning, and they 
contain no hint of the use of humour to cover a fad. Further- 
more, Fenton apparently does not 3'et feel that the word carries 
its true figurative meaning alone, and he usually adds a reinforc- 
ing word, as in "the humor of her inclination," "humor of madnes," 



A Study of Humours 55 

"humor of . . . disposicion," "humour of oure affection."^ 
All this suggests a lack of confidence in such a use of the word 
and would seem to indicate that humour in the derived sense is 
just taking hold on the language in Fenton's time. 

Considering the earl}^ date, even though there is no evidence that 
Fenton's work had great influence, his tendency towards a critical 
program is vei'}' important as indicative of consciously new trends. 
He connects the medieval idea of the moral purpose of- character 
drawing and of story telling with the keen analysis of actual life 
and the newly developing literary art of the Renaissance. He has 
a program that is clearly perceived, extensive, and definite; it in- 
volves a moral application of his stories and characters; accord- 
ingl}', strict attention is given to a single idea in characterization; 
humour is the word used to indicate the phases of character studied; 
and the relation of his work to the condition of the time is stressed. 
In m.uch he is indebted to Bandello, hut he makes a great advance 
himself in the emphasis that he lays through his own employment 
of humour upon the critical analysis of character. In all of these 
respects he is a clear forerunner of Jonson. Mere translator 
though he was, his work was of a kind to be of vital importance 
in helping the medieval English attitude to character treatment 
to persist without a serious break under new critical conditions 
and even in connection with romantic fiction. 

B}^ the time that the word humour and the conception of char- 
actei- treatment which it involves had made its beginning in Eng- 
lish thought, a very kindred conception of art in characterization 
had entered from the classics in the idea of decorum. I have 
already expressed my dissent from Professor Spingarn's view that 
the humour conception wets derived largely from the conception 
of decorum. The two ideas are doubtless related, however, and 
inevitably interacted on each other. From the very opening of 
the Renaissance, in m.y opinion, the classics exercised their influ- 
ence on the attituile to character treatment and on literary art, an 
influence that gathered force. But until criticism developed con- 
scious theory, it worked through the native art rather than l^ecame 
a substitute for it. The attitude of the Renaissance that gave 

^In some cases this reinforcing word is no doubt due, however, to the 
fact that Fenton adds humour to the word that Belleforest had already- 
used to indicate bent or inclination. 



56 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy • 

the name huiuanism to the study of the classics and under the 
principle of decorum emphasized a dominant trait in character 
portra3^al undoubtedly furnished a powerful stimulus to the trans- 
fer from the portrayal of character through abstractions to the 
vivid picturing of types of folly drawn from real life. As typical 
of the attitude of Renaissance classicists to the art of characteri- 
zation, Wilson and Sidney may be chosen, representing a stretch 
of about fifteen years of time on either side of Fenton's work. 
Wilson belongs to the school of Ascham and Cheke, a school of 
men who were thorough classicists and yet English in temper and 
ready champions of pure English diction and of native traditions. 
Apparently under the influence of this loyalty to English ideals 
and traditions. Wilson uses contemporary types rather than classic 
to illustrate the classic ideal of characterization. Sidney repre- 
sents a more exact adherence to classical and Italian theories of 
criticism' with far less regard paid to native art, though his atten- 
tion to moral symbolism is almost medieval. 

Wilson in discussing "description" {The Arte of Rhetorique, 
pp. 178, 179) deals with the method of handling characters in 
oratory. Under the marginal heading "Diuersitie of natures" he 
says: 

Men are painted out in their colours. . . . The Englishman for 
feeding and chaunging for apparell. The Dutchman for drinking. The 
Frenchman for pride & inconstance. The Spanyard for nimblenes of 
body, and much disdaine: the Italian for great wit and policie: the 
Scots for boldnesse, and the Boeme for stubbornesse. 

Many people are described by their degree, as a man of good yeares, is 
coumpted sober, wise, and circumspect: a young man wilde and carelesse: 
a woman babling, inconstaunt, and readie to beleeue all that is tolde her. 

By vocation of life, a Souldier is coumpted a great bragger, and a 
vaunter of himself: A Scholer simple: A Russet coate, sad, and some- 
times craftie: a Courtier, flattering: a Citizen, gentle. 

Then he discusses the conventions even for historical personages, 
apparently using "comelinesse" as a synonym for decorum : 

In describing of persons, there ought alwaies a comelinesse to bee vsed, 
so that nothing be spoken, which may bee thought is not in them. As if 
one shall describe Henry the sixth, he might cal him gentle, milde of 
nature, led by perswasion, and readie to forgiue, carelesse for wealth, 
suspecting none, mercifull to all, fearefull in aduersitie, and without fore- 
cast to espie his misfortune. Againe, for Richard the third, I might 



A Study of Humours ■ 57 

bring him in, cruel of heart, ambicious by nature, enuious of mind, a 
deepe dissembler, a close man for weightie matters, hardie to reuenge, 
and fearful! to lose his high estate, trustie to none, liberall for a pur- 
pose, casting still the worst, and hoping euer the best. 

While the emphasis in these passages is on the social type, so 
that nationality, class, or vocation is stressed as in medieval art, 
or else on the historical individual, the demand so early in the 
century for the treatment of character according to a fundamental 
trait is significant for the development of humours as well as for 
such later kindred studies as Shakespeare's Eichard III or Hot- 
spur. In Wilson's connection of the fundamental trait with defi- 
nitely marked social types we see every opportunity for the social 
types of Chaucer's Prologue and the abstractions of the morality 
to fuse, and out of the fusion to gain greater individuality for 
the social type through the study of man's inner nature and 
greater verisimilitude for the abstraction through its connection 
with life. 

Sidney's discussion of the problem of character treatment shoi^vs 
a far better formulation of principles than Wilson's or Fenton's. 
Though he has gained this greater definiteness by attention to 
classic and Italian criticism and literature rather than English, 
his utterances have some significance for the humour conception.^ 
Indeed, most of Sidney's critical ideas are important for Jonson. 
Sidney's defense of the dramatic unities, his arraignment of the 
absurdities of romantic plays, his stress on the moral function of 
literature, his classic principle that "comedy is an imitation of the 
common errors of our life" (p. 28), doubtless influenced Jonson's 
theories as well as those of other Elizabethan writers. It is ante- 
cedently probable, too, that Sidney's principle of emphasizing the 
fundamental trait in character in order to convey the moral lesson, 
reinforced the tendencies of Jonson's work. The following pas- 
sages show Sidney's attitude to the portrayal of character: 

'•Professor Spingarn's best statement of his view of the connection be- 
tween Sidney and Jonson's humour treatment is as follows: "Even the 
conception of 'humours' and of their function in comedy, in the induction 
to Every Man out of his Humour, is in a measure the adaptation of a 
fashionable phrase of the day to Sidney's theory of comedy, though the 
genius of Jonson has intensified and individualized the portrayal of char- 
acter beyond the limits of mere Horatian and Renaissance decorum." 
Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century, Vol. I, p. xv. In this same 
connection Professor Spingarn gives references to the passages that I 
quote from Sidney, i 



58 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

This doth the comedy handle so, in our private and domestical matters, 
as with hearing it we get, as it were, an experience what is to be looked 
for of a niggardly Demea, of a crafty Davus, of a flattering Gnatho, of a 
vain-glorious Thraso; and not only to know what effects are to be ex- 
pected, but to know who be such, by the signifying badge given them by 
the comedian [The Defense of Poesy, ed. Cook, p. 28). 

But I speak to this purpose, that all the end of the comical part be 
not upon such scornful matters as stir laughter only, but mixed with it 
that delightful teaching which is the end of poesy. And the great fault, 
even in that point of laughter, and forbidden plainly by Aristotle, is that 
they stir laughter in sinful things, which are rather execrable than ridic- 
ulous; or in miserable, which are rather to be pitied than scorned. For 
what is it to make folks gape at a wretched beggar or a beggarly clown, 
or, against law of hospitality, to jest at strangers because they speak 
not English so well as we do? what do we learn? . . . But rather a 
busy loving courtier; a heartless threatening Thraso; a self -wise-seeming 
schoolmaster; a wry-transformed traveller: these if we saw walk in stage- 
names, which we play naturally, therein were delightful laughter and 
teaching delightfulness {ihid., pu. 51, 52). 

The idea is even expressed for tragedy (p. 28) where Sidney 
speaks of tragedy as making "tyrants manifest their tyrannical 
humonrs." The nse of humour here, though in connection with 
tragedy and perhaps unconscious, is still interesting as showing 
at least the assimilation of Sidney's conception of character with 
the idea of inclination or bent. In another passage (pp. 16, 17), 
the abstract moral significance that lies back of the poet's treat- 
ment of character is illustrated by a large number of examples, 
drawn, with one exception, from the classics. 

To my mind, however, Sidney's idea of moral symbolism in the 
portrayal of character and of consistency in treatment, or decorum, 
is not the same thing as the native idea of humours. It is similar, 
but accessory rather than essential to that ideal of character treat- 
ment in accordance with which Nashe and Lodge built up realistic 
sketches of English follies in the framework of the Seven Deadly 
Sins, and Jonson created characters, like Juniper and Brisk, by 
following lines of treament conventionalized for English types. 
Sidney seems to me not true enough to English art, not sufficiently 
imbued with the English spirit. His preference for classic exam- 
ples marks a break Avith native tradition. For men like Fenton 
and ISTashe with their eyes on actual life, classic types are of sec- 
ondary interest. At any rate, in Sidney's discussions there is not 



A Study of Humourf^ 59 

the same native color or range of types or definite inclination 
toward an intimate study of English life that we find in Fenton, 
in Nashe, in I^odge later, and finally in Jonson. It is to these 
men with something of Jonson's provincial temper rather than to 
men like Sidney with his close attention to classic ideals and char- 
acters that we are to look for the development of the word humour 
and of the English types portrayed hy Jonson under the concep- 
tion of humour. 

The first of these predecessors of Jonson to be mentioned is 
Lyly, who, though Italianate in many phases of his art, shows a 
strong prejiidice for things English. It is in Lyly's Euphues, a 
dozen years after Fenton, that I have noted the next free use of 
humour in Jonson's sense to denote inclination. In spite of the 
fact that Jonson satirized Euphuism^ along with other excesses in 
diction, there is reason for believing that EupJiues may have at- 
tracted his more serious attention. Certainly the story shows the 
ordinary seriousness of purpose in treating characters and man- 
ners which prepares for Jonson. The ideal elements of character 
in Euphues are set over against the follies of Philautus, or self- 
love; and other phases of folly than those due to self-love are 
satirized and anatomized. In many instances it is follies of the 
same type, those arising from self-love, pride, pretension, that 
attract Jonson's rebuke ; Cynthia's Revels has for its subtitle The 
Fountain of Self-Love. 

In Euphues (WorJcs of Lyly, ed. Bond, Vol. I, p. 19G) there is 
a passage in which a number of character tendencies are denomi- 
nated humours: 

But this I note, that for the most part they [would-be wits] stande so 
on their pantuffles, that they be secure of perills, obstinate in their owne 
opinions, impatient of labour, apte to conceiue wrong, credulous to be- 
leeue the worst, ready to shake off their olde acquaintaunce without 
cause, and to condempne them without colour: All which humors are 
by somuch the more easier to bee purged, by howe much the lesse they 
haue festred the sinnewes. 

Some other passages in which humour is used in Euphues with a 
kindred meaning are as follows: 

^Every Man out. III, 1, gives in the term "anatomy of wit" applied to 
Saviolina the subtitle of Euphues. Cf. Koeppel, Ben Jonson's Wirkung, 
etc., for a list of echoes of Euphues in Jonson's works. 



60 English Elements hi Jonson's Early Comedy 

Althovighe these ensamples be harde to imitate, yet shoulde euery man 
do his endeuour to represse that liot and heady humor which he is by 
nature subiecte vnto (Works, Vol. I, pp. 278, 279). 

My trust is you will deale in the like manner with Euphues, that if he 
haue not fead your humor, yet you will excuse him, etc. ( Works, Vol. 
II, p. 10). 

Those that . . . follow their own humour, and refuse the Phisitions 
remedy {ibid., p. 33). 

I see thy humor is loue, thy quarrell ielousie. . . . There is nothing 
that can cure the kings Euill, but a Prince . . . nothing purge thy 
humour, but . . . libertie (p. 95). 

Then as one pleasing thy selfe in thine owne humour . . . thou 
rollest all thy wits to sif te Loue from Lust (p. 98 ) . 

But to wrest the will of man, or to wreath his heart to our humours, it 
is not in the compasse of Arte (p. 114). 

If thy humour be such that nothing can feede it but loue, etc. (p. 156). 

There can be nothing either more agreeable to my humour, or these 
Gentlewomens desires, then to vse some discourse (p. 163). 

So that Nature might be sayd to frame vs for others humovirs not for 
our owne appetites (p. 165). 

It is evident that Lyly uses humour with a much more assured 
application to character and in a greater number of shaded mean- 
ings than does Fenton. In these examples the word is applied to 
follies constantly, and has been extended to cover a momentary 
desire. There is even a suggestion, in the first passage quoted, 
of a list of humours and hence of the extension of the term to 
cover a fairly broad field of evils, while the word pui^ge is used 
for the cure of these evils. ^ 

Just as Jonson, while satirizing a fashion set by Lyly, may yet 
have owed something to Lyly's studies in character, so he may have 
been influenced toward his treatment of humours by Gabriel Har- 
vey, whose affected diction was very probably satirized in Juniper 
of The Case is Altered, as Hart has shown.^ The vocabulary of 
Juniper certainly indicates Jonson's familiarity with Harvey's 
works. Humour is a favorite word with Harvey. As early as 
1579 he uses it several times in letters to Spenser in connection 

'Lyly's dramas will be taken iip later under a discussion of the dramatic 
treatments of humours. 

"See p. 94 infra.. Hart has pointed out the fact that Harvey's use of 
capricious is satirized in The Case is Altered. Harvey uses capricious 
nature, witte, veine, and humour. For this last phrase see Works, ed. 
Grosart, Vol. II, p. 54. 



A Study of Humours 61 

with follies that are indicative of temperament or character. For 
example, he writes : 

But to let Titles and Tittles passe, and come to the very pointe in 
deede, which so neare toucheth my lusty Trauayler to the quicke, and is 
one of the praedominant humors that raigne in our common Youths ( Works 
of Harvey, Vol. I, p. 25). 

Credite me, I will neuer linne baityng at you, til I haue rid you quite 
of this yonkerly, & womanly humor (ibid., p. 26). 

The conception of humour in the physical sense as influencing 
mental attitude is set forth in a passage from another of these 
letters : 

All philosophye saith that the temperature and disposition [and] in- 
clination of the mindes followythe the temperature and composition of 
the bodye. Galen, &c. (ibid., p. 150). 

It is especially in the quarrel with Nashe a dozen years later that 
Harvey makes the word humour do valiant duty : 

This Martinish and Counter-martinish age: wherein the Spirit of Con- 
tradiction reigneth, and euerie one superaboundeth in his owne humor, 
euen to the annihilating of any other, witho,ut rime, or reason (Poure 
Letters, 1592; Works, Vol. I, p. 203). 

Fie on grosse scurility, and impudent calumny: that wil rather goe to 
Hell in lest, then to lieauen in earnest, and seeke not to reforme any vice, 
to backebite, and depraue euery person, that feedeth not their humorous 
fancy (ibid., p. 204). 

No man loather then my self, to contend with desperate | malecontents : 
or to ouerthwart obstinate Humoristes (ibid., pp. 214, 215). 

Euery Martin lunior, and Puny Pierce, a monarch in the kingdome of 
his owne humour ( ibid., p. 233 ) . 

Indeede what more easie, then to finde the man by his humour, the 
Midas by his eares, the Calfe by his tongue, etc. (Pierces Supererogation, 
1593; Works, Vol. II, p: 215). 

That humorous rake, that affecteth the reputation of supreme Singu- 
larity (ibid., p. 277). 

With certain phrases in these attacks on ISTashe compare Jon- 
son's description of Puntarvolo as "wholly consecrated to singular- 
ity," and of Carlo Buffone as a "scurrilous and prophane jester; 
that . . . will transform any person into deformity. . . 
His religion is railing." Other phrases scattered throughout 
Every Man out and Cyntliia's Revels, especially those dealing with 
Ihe impudence of Carlo and Anaides, with fierce jesting, with back- 



62 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

biting, and so on, remind one of Harvey's characterization of 
Nashe.^ 

These three writers, Fenton, Lyly, and Harvey, represent three 
stages in the use of the term humour, covering a period of twenty- 
five years. Fenton employs the word to indicate disposition or 
characteristic inclination, but keeps near to the literal meaning 
and applies the term to seriously vicious tendencies. With Lyly 
the word is applied to follies, and Harvey about the same time 
shows the same use. By the time of Harvey's attacks on N"ashe, 
however, humour in the figurative sense has l)ecome so common 
that the words humorous and humorist have been adopted to de- 
scribe persons possessed of a humour, and humour has been ex- 
tended to indicate an affectation, as the later examples from Har- 
vey show. Both the derivatives appear frequently in Jonson's 
work, and humour as an affectation is constantly used by Jonson 
for purposes of satire. The last passages from Harvey are con- 
temporaneous with the use of the term by Greene, Nashe, and 
many others; and by this time the idea of humours had reached a 
pretty full expansion in didactic prose. 

During the years 1580 to 1592 Greene wrote a large number nf 
stories in which — especially in those of his middle and late peri- 
ods — the word humour occurs from time to time in various senses 
approaching Jonson's use. Some of these stories are merely studies 
of types embodying characteristic mental attitudes or moral inclina- 
tions. In Planetomachia (1585), for instance, Greene studies the 
influence of some of the planets upon the individual in develop- 
ing one dominant trait that leads to evil. The control of partic- 
ular planets over certain of the physical humours is discussed, and 
then Greene takes up the relation of these planets and humours lo 
the '^affections" of men. This idea of planetary influence is prom- 
inent with Lyly, Nashe, and others in the study of manners through 
the emphasis of one dominant humour or inclination in the in- 
dividual; but it does not affect Jonson. Equally interesting is 
Alcida: Greenes MetamorpJiosis (1588), where Fiordespine's pride 
in beauty, Eriphila's wit and fickleness, and Marpesia's inability 
to keep a secret are studied as examples of social vices due to ab- 

^The well-defined theories of the Renaissance on wit, jesting, etc., out 
of which these resemblances spring, are discussed in connection with Carlo 
Buffone of Ev. M. out. 



A Study of Humours 63 

normal or imwholesome bent in character. This work shows the 
influence of Lyly's Euphues with its study of the evil and the 
virtuous qualities of youth. In the slightly earlier Euphues, his 
Censure to Philautus (1587), Greene deals with passion, wisdom 
(or craft), fortitude, and liberality in a way which shows a greater 
indebtedness to Lyly, but the stressing of the qualities of youth 
as social is less marked than in Alcida, and so the work is less im- 
portant as a force leading to Jonson. The Farewell to Follie 
(1591) contains several stories, in each of which is presented one 
supreme quality whose effect is ruinous. So this conception of 
character study enters into a number of Greene's works, though 
it is not always so completely the basis as in the stories mentioned 
above. His treatment of the unhealthy tendency in character is 
broad and embraces the deadly as well as the foolish or frivolou>, 
for his stories are often tragic. 

In a number of these studies of character, humour is applied to 
a quality or mood. In Penelope's Weh (1587), Greene speaks of 
the "humorous perswasions" of Penelope's suitors (Works, ed. 
Grosart, Vol. V, p. 150) ; of the maid's willingness "to content her 
Ladies humour by beguyling the night with prattle" (p. 154) ; of 
"the chollericke humour and froward disposition of men" (p. 164) ; 
and of Saladyne's being "tickled with an inconstant humour" (p. 
170). Philomela (1592) shows a closer approach to Jonson's use, 
especially in the treatment of jealousy. There is a rebuke for this 
"humor of iealousie" (Vol. XI, p. 120) and for the "disposition 
of a gelous man that woulde hazard the honour of his wife to con- 
tent his owne suspitious humour" (p. 143). Later we read that 
his "lelious humor was satisfied" (p. 183). In the same story 
there occur the phrases "amorous humour" (p. 173) and "passion- 
ate humour" (p. 142). In the Vision (1592) it is again jealousy 
to which the term humour is applied. The phrases "iealious 
humor" (Vol. XII, p. 230), "pestilent humor" (p. 239), and 
"feede his humour" (p. 247) are all used with reference to jealousy. 

One of the most important writers of this "humour school" is 
Nashe. Some curious concrete representations of humour as 
indicative of the interest in the subject have been men- 
tioned above. It is noticeable that most of these examples 
are quoted from Xashe. There are many uses of the term 
in his works, too many to dwell upon in view of the space already 



64 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

given to a study of the developing use of the word. It will be 
sufficient to quote Nashe's most characteristic passages and give 
reference to some of the others. One of his most important pas- 
sages occurs in Pierce Pcnilesse, 1592, {Works, ed. McKerrow, 
Vol. I, pp. 319, 230) : 

Some men there be that, building too much vpon reason, perswade 
themselues that there are no Diuels at all, but that this word Dcemon. 
is such another morall of mischiefe, as the Poets Dame Fortune is of 
mishap : ... so vnder the person of this olde (Iimthonicall com- 
panion, called the Diuell, we shrowd all subtiltie masking vnder the 
name of simplicitie, all painted holines deuouring widowes houses, all 
gray headed Foxes clad in sheepes garments; so that the Diuell (as they 
make it) is onely a pestilent humour in a man, of pleasure, profit, or 
policie, that violently carries him away to vanitie, villanie, or monstrous 
hypocrisie: vnder vanitie I comprehend not onely all vaine Arts and 
studies whatsoeuer, but also dishonourable prodigalitie, vntemperate 
venery, and that hateful! sinne of selfe-loue, which is so common amongst 
vs: vnder villanie I comprehend murder, treason, theft, cousnage, cut- 
throat couetise, and such like: lastly, vnder hypocrisie, all Machiauilisme, 
puritanisme, and outward gloasing with a mans enemie, and protesting 
friendship to him that I hate and meane to harme, all vnder-hand cloak- 
ing of bad actions with Common-wealth pretences; and, finally, all Ital- 
ionate conueyances, as to kill a man, and then mourne for him, quasi vero 
it was not by my consent, to be a slaue to him that hath iniur'd me, and 
kisse his feete for opportunitie of reuenge, to be seuere in punishing 
offenders, that none might haue the benefite of such meanes but my selfe, 
to vse men for my purpose and then cast them off, to seeke his destruction 
that knowes my secrets; and such as I haue imployed in any murther or 
stratagem, to set them priuilie together by the eares, to stab each other 
mutually, for feare of bewraying me; or, if that faile, to hire them to 
humor one another in such courses as may bring them both to the gal- 
lowes. These, and a thousand more such sleights, hath hypocrisie learned 
by trauailing strange Countries. 

This selection is especially valuable because the word humour is 
used for a long series of vices or follies which, as Nashe says, carn^ 
the man away, and these evils are classified under three heads that 
might well cover Jonson's program. Of the humours that Xashe 
mentions under vanity, Jonson satirizes especially vain studies, dis- 
honorable prodigality, and self-love; of the comic motives men- 
tioned under villainy, Jonson deals also with covetise and cozenage; 
and of those mentioned under liypocrisy, Jonson satirizes especially 
Puritanism. The many phases of Machiavellism which N^ashe en- 



A Study of Humours 65 

larges upon so full}- are rather foreign to Jonson's treatment of 
hypocritical friendsliip, but similar studies do occur in Angelo of 
The Case is Altered, Carlo of Every Man out, Tucca of Poetaster, 
etc. Some of the vices that Nashe enumerates can also be par- 
alleled in the tragedies of Jonson. 

A second passage of some importance is from The Terrors of the 
Night (1593). It is extremely interesting as filling in the list of 
humours given in the passage from Pierce Penilesse, and as mak- 
ing Nashe's program of humours more nearly equivalent to Jon- 
son's. Of course a number of typical social evils that are treated 
by Jonson are analyzed elsewhere in Nashe's works, but my interest 
here lies in the use of the word humour for these types. The 
passage reads (WorJcs, Vol. I, p. 353) : 

As for the spirits of the aire, which haue no other visible bodies or 
form, but such as by the vnconstant glimmering of our eies is begotten; 
they are in truth all show and no substance, deluders of our imagination, 
& nought els. Carpet knights, politique statesmen, women & children 
they most conuers with. Carpet knights they inspire with a humor of 
setting big lookes on it, being the basest cowards vnder heauen, couering 
an apes hart with a lions case, and making false alarums when they 
mean nothing but a may-game. Politique statesmen they priuily incite to 
bleare the worlds eyes with clowdes of common wealth pretences, to broach 
any enmitie or ambitious humor of their owne vnder a title of their 
cuntries preseruation. To make it faire or fowle when they list to pro- 
cure popularity or induce a preamble to some mightie peece of prowling, 
to stir vp tempests round about, & replenish heauen with prodigies and 
wonders, the more to ratifie their auaritious religion. Women they 
vnder-hand instruct to pownce and boulster out theyr brawn-falne deformi- 
ties, to new perboile with painting | their rake-leane withered visages, to 
set vp flaxe shops on their forheads when all their owne haire is dead 
and rotten, to sticke their gums round with Comfets when they haue not 
a tooth left in their heads to help them to chide withall. 

Children they seduce with garish obiects and toyish babies, abusing 
them many yeares with slight vanities. So that you see all their whole 
influence is but thin ouercast vapours, flying clouds dispersed with the 
least winde of wit or vnderstanding. 

A passage occurring a page or two earlier may also be quoted 
here (pp. 351, 353) : 

Those spirits of the fire . . . bee by nature ambitious, haughty, 
and proud, nor do they loue vertue for it selfe any whit, but because 
they would ouerquell and outstrip others with the vaineglorious osten- 



66 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

tation of it. A humor of monarchizing and nothing els it is, which makes 
them affect rare quallified studies.^ 

In the passage from Pierce Penilesse general classes of hiimoiirs 
are discussed; in those from The Terrors of the Night Nashe 
gives specific types, applying the word humour to tliem several 
times. There is the humour of the cowardly soldier, as in Boba- 
dill; the humour of the politic statesman, as in Sir Politick Would- 
be; the more general humour of women who paint, pad, and wear 
false hair, as in Mistress Otter; and the '^"'humour of monarchizing" 
or of "vaineglorious ostentation," as in Brisk and numerous other 
Jonsonian characters. 

Various other types, tendencies, and follies are spoken of as 
liumours in Nashe's works. For instance, in Pierce Penilesse 
alone there are the following examples, besides those given above, 
most of them being pretty nearly akin to Jonson's uses in his anal- 
yses of character: 

Malecontent humor (Vol. I, p. 157). 

Hee will hee humorous, forsoth, and haue a broode of fashions by him- 
selfe (p. 169). 

A yoong Heyre . . . falles in a quarrelling humor with his fortune 
(p. 170). 

The Italian is a more cunning proud fellowe, that hides his humour 
[of pride] far cleanlier (p. 176). 

This [the craze for antiques] is the disease of our newfangled humor- 
ists, that know not what to doe with their welth (p. 183). 

He hearing me so inquisitiue in matters aboue humane | capacity, enter- 
tained my greedie humour with this answere (p. 218). 

Yet newfangled lust . . . brought him out of loue with this greedy, 
bestiall humour (p. 22.3). 

The Foxe . . . grew in league with an old Camelion, that could put 
on all shapes, and imitate any colour . . . that with these sundrie 

^In this same connection (Vol. I, pp. 354-357) Nashe has a discussion 
of physical humours— still considered in relation to the spirits of fire, 
air, and earth — and of the influence of these humours on the mind, 
especially as conducing to phantasy, dreams, etc. Nashe seems to have 
been especially attracted in these years to the science and associated 
superstitions of the day; and, consequently, he is constantly connecting 
the science and manners of the age by turning from the physical side 
to the moral and mental inclinations of men, and especially to social 
evils. Nashe expresses the same idea of the influence of an excess of one 
physical humour on the mind that Fenton, or Bandello, and Harvey do. 
He says, for instance, in one place (p. 370), "No humor in generall in 
our bodies ouer-flowing or abounding, but the tips of our thoughts are 
dipt in hys tincture." 



A Study of Humours 67 

formes, (applyde to mens variable humors) he might perswade the world, 
etc. (p. 224)/ 

A great number of Jonson's characters might have been sug- 
gested by Nashe's studies and especially by Pierce Penilesse. To my 
mind, no writer of the sixteenth century before Jonson, not even 
Chapman in his Humorous Day's Mirth, formed a more definite 
idea of humour as applied to character or organized a more definite 
system for the study of various follies than Nashe.^ The one pas- 
sage from Pierce Penilesse that was quoted at length alone sug- 
gests an extensive and organized comedie humaine of humour types. 
There is little doubt, I think, that Nashe was one of the most 
potent influences in Jonson's work. When we come to a discussion 
of the early plays separately, a number of resemblances between 
the work of the two men will give added strength to this idea. 

ISTashe's plan, as shown in the whole of Pierce Penilesse, of clas- 
sifying and studying comprehensively social follies, was continued 
by Lodge in Wits Miserie. Lodge's importance for Jonson lies not 
so much in his contribution to the conception of humours, for his 
use of humour is more or less casual, but in his development of the 
character sketch of the Theophrastan type, a matter which calls 
for separate notice later. Lodge's use of humour in Wits Miserie, 
however, is almost altogether in the characteristic Jonsonian sense. 
I have noted the following examples : 

This humour [of dicing] must be satisfied (Hunterian Club, p. 41). 
As some poetical humor inspires me (p. 55 ) . 

In what blindnesse and error that miserable man is, that suffereth him- 
selfe to bee conquered by this cursed humor [of envy] (p. 58). 

^The following are some additional uses of humour in Nashe, apparently 
not so important for the development of Jonson's conception and yet show- 
ing a variety of meanings; as, essential bent of character, momentary 
mood, affectation: Vol. I, pp. 7, 114, 311, .320, 375; Vol. II, pp. 262 and 
298; Vol. Ill, pp. 26, 30, 89, 102, 120, 134, 149, 151, 368, etc. 

-The interest in the organization and classification of follies evidenced 
in Nashe is also seen at times in Jonson's humour plays. At the open- 
ing of Every Man out, Asper runs over a list of evil-doers according to pro- 
fession, the strumpet, ruffian, broker, usurer, lawyer, courtier, with "their 
extortion, pride, or lusts." And in the Palinode at the end of Cynthia's 
Revels, the play that practically closes the stricter humour studies, Jon- 
son mentions a large number of foolish fashions and customs that he has 
attacked most severely, and groups them under certain kinds of humours, 
such as swaggering, affected, fantastic, simpering, and self-loving humours. 
The various humours of lovers are also analyzed in Cynthia's Revels in 
Phantaste's speech, quoted above, about her "Book of Hunjours." 



68 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

If he counsel any man in his owne humor [of malice], he laboreth, etc. 
. . . Flie this fiend and his humor (p. 59). 

Humor of impatience (p. 64 ) . 

He will not . . . affect anie learning that fgedes not his humor 
(p. 72). 

Feed him in his humor [of immoderate joy], you shall haue his heart 
(p. 84). 

Willing that the Ciuill world . . . should be infected with his 
humor [of idleness] (p. 94). 

The ordinarie seate of this humor [pusillanimity] is in the sensualitie 
of the heart (p. 97).^ 

After 1596^ the date of WUs Miserie, or even after Tlie Terrors 
of the Night of 1593, it is useless to attempt any record of tlie 
growing use of tlie word humour, though I shall revert to the mat- 
ter in connection with Jonson's forerunners in the drama. Hu- 
mour occurs frequently in Dickenson's Arishas (1594), in Breton's 
Wits Trenchmour (1597), etc. It occurs in what seem to be the 
earliest formal satires, Donne's (ca. 1593). Indeed, the term is 
quite as well suited to a study of folly in satire as in comedy, and 
we find GuiljDin in Skialetheia (1598) and Eowlands a little later 
in his satires stressing the word as much as Jonson does in his 
worlv of the same period. Isolated examples of the use of the word 
are met in a great number of the writers, early and late, of the last 
quarter of the sixteenth century, but above only those wi'iters could 
be considered who used the word humour frequently and to cover, 
as it were, a series of follies and evils. - 

With the word humour in the Jonsonian sense already in great 
vogue, and with Jonson's scheme for the treatment of character 
already established in literature, we have in the character sketch 
of the so-called Theophrastan type a further contribution to the 
development of Jonson's satiric comedies. The character sketch 
in some form, of course, exists all the way through English liter- 
ature. Chaucer's Prologue consists of character sketches, and its 

^Outside of Wits Miserie the word humoiir is rare in Lodge's works. 
There are, however, some scattering uses of it, as in Margarite of America, 
Hunterian Club, pp. 18 and 50, and in the early Forbonius and Prisceria, 
p. 62. 

-I have naturally not attempted to find every instance of the use of 
the word in any writer. In some, as in Greene, I have left many instances 
of the use unrecorded. 



A Study of Humours 69 

influence must have been fairly extensive. For example, late in 
the sixteenth century Greenes Vision and The Cohler of Canter- 
hurie have a number of character sketches in verse directly imita- 
tive of Chaucer. The> Ship of Fools, The Fraternitije of Vaca- 
homles, Harman's Caueat, The Bye Way to the Spyttel Rous, and 
other works of the sixteenth century show the descriptive method 
of outlining a character briefly. They often stress the essential 
quality of the type that is treated, but in the main the tendency is 
to deal with social classes or with individual traits that are exter- 
nal. Often, as in The Ship of Fools, the actions of characters 
are stressed rather than the qualities. The Theophrastan character 
sketch is a different thing, however, different usually in method of 
approach but especially in art. It describes a type which repre- 
sents, not the social group, but tiie dominant mental or moral 
trait in the individual. This character tendency as applied to the 
individual is almost exactly the '^Tiumour" of Jonson's satiric com- 
edy,^ and the character sketch very readily came into use in satire 
on humours. Moreover, in its art the Theophrastan character 
sketch is preeminently suited to the satiric purpose of the comedy 
of humours. It is in prose, succinct, and pointed in analysis; 
there is a satirical or ironical turn to it; and the language often 
becomes aphoristic, or epigrammatic, or antithetical. In its com- 
pression it resembles the poetic epigram, which is a corresponding 
growth and contributed largely to the hold that the character sketch 
took upon the comedy of humours. Through the two influences 
the brief satiric analysis of character became associated with the 
study of humours. 

Jonson himself has often been considered an innovator in the 
use of the Theophrastan character sketch. He was obviously, how- 
ever, following in the steps of others, especially of Lodge. Indeed 
this type of character sketch was introduced into English literature 
much earlier than many have supposed, as early at least as 1576. 
In this year was published The Mirror of Mans lyfe, Englisht hy 
H. K[erto7i] (from the Latin of Lotharius, afterwards Innocent 

'Harris, Mod. Lang. Notes, Vol. X, pp. 44-46, "The Origin of the Seven- 
teenth Century Idea of Humours," calls attention to this kinship, but, 
failing to recognize the complex nature of the origin, he overstresses the 
influence of Aristotle's analyses of character and of the sketches of his 
pupil Theophrastus. 



70 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

III).'^ The work is chiefly a religious treatise^ but there are sev- 
eral treatments of character that show the point of view and the 
art of the Theophrastan sketch. They occur in Book II, Chapter 
13, "The properties of a Couetous man"; Chapter 24, "Of the 
Ambitious man"; Chapter 28, "The properties of a proude man," 
continued in Chapters 30-32 ; and Chapter 34, "Of the properties 
of arrogante men." These chapters are really short paragraphs, 
terse and direct in treatment of topics. The analysis of character 
is just in Jonson's manner, though the influence of the Bible is 
often to be detected. Of the proud man it is said : "He is rashe, 
bolde, boasting, arrogant, soone moued, and very importunate" 
(Chap. 28), and "The proude man . . . thinketh the party 
to whom he vseth speeche, thereby to reape profite and great com- 
moditie : but if with curtesie hee embrace any man, hee presumeth 
his countenance, to gaine hym great credite. He seldome vseth 
any friendly afi^ection, but alwayes imperiously dothe shewe his 
authoritie. His Pryde, his arrogancie, and hys disdaine, is of more 
force wyth hym, than courage, or manhoode" (Chap. 32). Prob- 
ably not long after the appearance of The Mirror of Mans lyfe, 
Ulpian Fulwell published The First Parte, of the Eyghth liberall 
Science: Entituled, Ars adulandi, the Arte of Flaiterie,^ which 
contains character sketches exactly in the Theophrastan manner. 
The characterizations of Pierce Pickthanke and Drunken Dickon 
suggest in some points Carlo Bufl^one and Shift of Every Man out 
and will be taken up later. Even earlier than the work of Kerton 
and Fulwell, Bullein's Dialogue against the Fever Pestilence, 1564, 
shows one or two close approaches to the same treatment. The 
new character sketch appears occasionally, too, in the work of Har- 
vey, as the passages quoted above go to show, and Lyly and Greene 
in their prose works characterize their personages very nearly at 

^Cf. Schelling's Life and Writings of George Gascoigne, Univ. of Penn. 
Publ.. pp. 96 f., where the statement is made that Gascoigne translated 
the same work in the same year and made it a part of his Droome of 
Doomes Daye. Gascoigne described his original as "written in an old 
kynde of caracters." See the portion of the dedicatory epistle quoted 
by Prof. Schelling. 

^The work, which is said to have been newly corrected, is assigned by 
Corser to the year 1579. My acquaintance with it is only through the 
extracts in Corser's Collectanea Anglo-Poetica, Part 6, pp. 389 ff. The 
word humour occurs incidentally in these extracts and in 7*7(6 Mirror of 
Mans lyfe, but is not used for the folly of the character analyzed. 



A Study of Humours 71 

times in the epigrammatic way of the Theophrastan sketch. The 
character sketches of Pierce Penilesse and The Terrors of the Night 
that might be called Theophrastan are not separated from the flu- 
ent thread of ISTashe's story, but their art is just that of Jonson's 
rapid, pointed, and satiric treatment of character. In the drama, 
also, as in the early play of Jack Juggler, the description of char- 
acter without portrayal through action supplies similar character 
sketches. 

Indeed, the Theophrastan type of sketch can be called new in 
English literature only as it Ijecomes a consciously cultivated artis- 
tic form, and is found complete and detached. As such it is most 
fully developed among the writers before Jonson by Lodge, whose 
Wits Miserie is composed very largely of brief, distinct delinea- 
tions of character. His sketches are no more brilliant or pointed 
than those of Pierce Penilesse and of several other works of Kashe, 
but the method is more obvious. Taking the most brilliant sketche? 
of Nashe, Lodge has seemingly built up the whole of Wits Miserie 
on the model of them. Both Nashe and Lodge were presumably 
influenced by Theophrastus himself. In 1592 Casaubon had 
brought out his Theoplu-asti Characteres Ethici, which doubtless 
soon became known to English humanists. Indeed, Lodge's knowl- 
edge of Theophrastus can hardly be doubted.^ 

It was Professor Penniman who first noted the fact that Wils 
Miserie has a great number of parallels to Jonson's character 
sketches. In the introduction to his edition of Poetaster and 
Satiromastix, to appear shortly in the Belles-Lettres Series, Pro- 
fessor Penniman says: '^'Wits Miserie with its satirical characteri- 
zation of the 'Devils Incarnat' of the age suggests Jonson's early 
comedies, in which several of the very 'Devils' described by Lodge 
are made to play important parts. . . . Sometimes the same 
'Devil' appears in several characters, and sometimes several 'Devils' 
inhabit the same character."- These parallels to Jonson's work will 
be taken up in connection with the separate plays; here I am in- 
terested in the character sketch only as a part of the study of hu- 

'There is one mention of him in Wits Miserie (p. 20). 

^I am under the greatest obligation to Professor Penniman for calling 
my attention, through personal correspondence, to this relationship be- 
tween Lodge and Jonson, and for th.e exceptional kindness of allowing me 
to see his manuscript before publication. 



72 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

niours, and especially in the fact that Jonson got not only the 
method of characterization from Nashe and Lodge primarily, but 
also enough details to show us what his models were. 

So far I have dealt only with the non-dramatic works that might 
have contributed either directly or indirectly to the development 
of Jonson's satiric comedy. Before the appearance of Every Man 
in, however, there are a number of plays embodying the same con- 
ception of character treatment. In the drama as in prose litera- 
ture it is not worth while attempting to chronicle all the uses of 
the word humour before Jonson. As the term became more pop- 
ular, many men utilized it in its various meanings, probably with- 
out any consciousness of the fact that they were using it. It is 
only in the dramas where the word is employed, on the one hand, 
with a certain affectation or consciousness, or, on the other, for a 
study of typical character tendencies that the use becomes impor- 
tant for the very definite humour program of Jonson.^ 

In the drama as in fiction, Lyly seems to be one of the very 
earliest writers to study the inclinations of individuals systemati- 
cally and to apply the word humour to these inclinations. His 
plays shoM^ transitional phases in the idea of humour. He uses 
the word, not as Jonson does, for a folly alone, but at times with 
a sense of the physical meaning; again with a view to what is 
fundamental and permanent in man's make-up ; often with as much 
tragic as comic force, as in Midas; and, in The Woman in the 
Moon, with application to varying moods of one character under 
the influence of the planets. 

In Midas, entered on the Stationers' Eegister 1591 and assigned 
to the year 1589 by Bond, three characters at least are studies 
exemplifying the supremacy of one passion, besides Midas with his 
passion for gold. These are the three councillors of Midas: Eris- 
tus, whose bent is toward love: Martins, who is eager for conquest; 

^Typical early uses of the word are to be found in The Arraignment of 
Paris, III, 1, 1. 22; Two Italian Gentlemen, 1. 181; Orlando Furioso, 1. 120; 
James IV, I, 2 (1. 439), II, 2 (1. 1111); Pinner of Wakefield, II, 1 
(1. 305) ; Endimion, I, 3, 1. 7, and III, 4. 1. 10; Love's Metamorphosis, 
III, 1, 1. 81; Goblers Prophesie, III, 1, 1. 22, and III, 3, 1. 8; Threes 
Lords and Three Ladies of London, Hazlitt's Dodsley, Vol. VI, p. 442; 
Leir, 11. 183, 583, and 742; Taming of a Shreio, Shakespeare's Library, 
Part II, Vol. II, pp. 512 and 520. There are a number of interesting 
uses of humour in The Spanish Tragedy and Soliman and Perseda; cf. 
Crawford's Concordance to the Works of Kyd in Materialien. 



A Study of Humours 73 

and Mellacrites, whose sole desire is gold. The word humour is 
used only a few times; but in II, 1, 1. 13, Eristus says of him- 
self, "Men change the manner of their loue, not the hmnor," 
and in 11. 64 if. Martins, in condemning the neglect of mar- 
tial pursuits, says of the other councillors, "Since this vnsatiable 
thirst of gold, and vntemperat humor of lust crept into the kings 
court, Souldiers haue begged almes of Artificers, and with their 
helmet on their head been glad to follow a Louer with a gloue in 
his hatte." In the same scene Sophronia, the daughter of Midas, 
and like Crites the type of the well-rounded and balanced char- 
acter, says of the thirst for gold displayed by Midas and Mella- 
crites, "The couetous humor of you both I contemne and wonder 
at, being vnfit for a king" (11. 38, 39). The whole scene is a 
study of humours, in which each character with a dominant in- 
clination urges his own desire in contempt of other interests, and 
in which through Sophronia the necessity for temperance and bal- 
ance in desire is emphasized. 

In The Woman in the Moon, licensed in 1595 and assigned by 
Bond to the years 1591-1593, there is a more extensive treatment 
of humours, but here the study deals with the influence of the 
planets in giving a single character. Pandora, different passions 
or humours at different periods. Bond sees in The Woman in the 
Moon some influence of Planetomachia, one of the early works in 
prose representing Greene's interest in the study of character bent 
(cf. Works of Lyly, Vol. Ill, pp. 235 f.). The successive passions 
dominating Pandora are called humours, and the whole play is a 
study of the follies arising from a lack of balance. First, under 
the influence of Saturn, Pandora becomes melancholy and behaves 
somewhat like Fallace of Every Man out. Music is proposed to 
"sift that humor from her heart" (I, 1, 1. 231). Then Jupiter 
fills Pandora with "Ambition and Disdaine," making her display 
the humour of Jonson's court ladies. Pandora herself applies 
humour to this mood of hers (II, 1, 1. 111). Mars, Sol, Venus, 
Mercury, and Luna in turn hold sway over her, and under each 
spell she acts as one of Jonson's humour types might act if domi- 
nated by the same inclination. In her final choice, Pandora says 
to the planets (V, 1, 11. 303 ff.) : 

Thou madst me sullen first, and thou loue, proud ; 
Thou bloody minded; he a Puritan: ' 



74 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

Thou Venus madst me loue all that I saw, 
Ai^d Hermes to deceiue all that I loue; 
But Cynthia made me idle, mutable, 
Forgetfull, foolish, fickle, franticke, madde; 
These be the humors that content me best. 
And therefore will I stay with Cynthia. 

Such a list of inclinations or humours, and the detailed study 
that Lyly gives each is a long step toward the humour comedy of 
Jonson. This treatment corresponds pretty well in time to ISTashe's 
conception of a dehnile program of humours, and, while not so 
extensive as Nashe's list, it is equally important because of its 
early place in the drama of humours. 

Probably before this last comedy of Lyly had been produced, 
there had appeared on the stage the old play, 817- Thomas More, 
which contains a few scenes very suggestive of the later humour 
plays. The overweening justice Suresbie and the perverse and 
irascible servingman Faulkner are put out of their humours by 
More in exactly Jonson's style. Faulkner twice uses humour with 
distinct reference to his follies. He vows to have his hair cut only 
"when the humors are purgd, not theis three years" (III, 3, 11. 
125 f.), and defies consequences "so it bee in my humor, or the 
Fates becon to mee" (III, 2, 11. 317 f.). 

By this time the idea of humour was general in the drama. 
One need only consult Bartlett's Concordance or Schmidt's Shake- 
speare-Lexicon to see how common the word is in Shakespeare's 
plays of the period. It was also becoming more usual to look at 
the character of men from the point of view of a prevailing tend- 
ency ratlier than from that of social cleavage. Marlowe, especially, 
carried this attitude into tragedy, and each of his great tragedies 
turns upon the overmastering passion of the hero, which leads to 
tragic consequences. 

Jonson's immediate predecessor in the comedy of humours is 
of course Chapman. In his Blind Beggar of Alexandria, 1596, 
several of the characters are humour types, and the word humour 
occurs frequently in the early part. The Comedy of Humours, 
which is supposedly Chapman's Humorous Day's Mirth (cf. Fleay, 
Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, Vol. I, p. 55), 
was a favorite on the stage in 1597, and illustrates the use of 
humour in the titles of plays to attract attention. The title may 



A Study of Humours 75 

even have been that of another play and not of Chapman's, for 
the word humour quickly became popular in titles.^ The close 
relation of An Humorous Day's Mirth to some of Jonson's plays 
will be noticed later. Chapman's Fount of New Fashions, 1598, 
which is now lost, may also have been very intimately related to 
the satirical Immour school that was rising. The title at least sug- 
gests Jonson's Fountain of Self-Love (or Cynthia's Revels). 

Meanwhile, possibly in 1597 with The Case is Altered and cer- 
tainly by 1598 with Every Man in, Jonson had begun tentative 
studies in humour comedy. These plays belong to the period when 
Jonson had recognized the field for his genius after the production 
of A Tale of a Tub and before Nashe and Lodge, on the one hand, 
and the contemporaneous craze for formal satire, on the other, 
had definitely turned him toward a formal plan of analysis and 
satire. In these experimental plays, especially in Every Man in, 
humour is a favorite word, the characters are approaching decidedly 
the humour type, and some influence of satire is developing. But 
it is only in 1599 that the mode is fully established. Indeed, Jon- 
son marks the distinction by giving the name ^'comical satire" to 
Every Man out, Cynthia's Revels, and Poetaster. 

^The reference in The Case is Altered to some play as having "nothing 
but humours . . . nothing but kings and princes in it" (I, 1) was 
probably added after humour plays became the vogue (see p. 91 infra). 
Still the language would not be inappropriate to an early reference to 
An Humorous Day's Mirth, for in a general sense "princes" might fit the 
characters belonging to the French nobility who appear in the play with 
the king and queen. 



CHAPTER IV 

A TALE OF A TUB 

That A Tale of a Tub was written during Elizabeth's reign is 
now pretty general!}^ recognized. The question of the exact date, 
however, is still debated. Fleay, followed by Schelling, assigns the 
date 1601, seeing in the reference to the constable as Old Blurt 
an echo of Blurt, Master Constahle.^ Small, in The Stage-Quar- 
rel (p. 15), has given about the best 'argument against connecting 
this reference with Middleton's comedy: the expression, he shows, 
is proverbial, and A Tale of a Tub could hardly have been writ- 
ten by Jonson at a time when he was producing his great comedies.^ 

Outside of Blurt, the various references or apparent references 
in A Tale of a Tub to English works are all to works earlier than 
1597, the date suggested by Small. The Pattern of Painful Ad- 
ventures is mentioned in III, 5 (p. 465). Turfe's choice of the 
clown Clay and clotli-breech in preference to Squire Tub (I, 2, p. 
444), and a number of allusions throughout to velvet as distin- 
guishing Lady Tub seem to be reminiscent of Greene's Quip for 
an Upstart Courtier.^ In II, 1 (p. 453) Bungay's dog is men- 
tioned, and in IV, 5 (p. 474) Friar Bacon and Doctor Faustus. 
The last line of III, 4 possibly refers to Gascoigne's Supposes, all 
the more as the passage indicates the vague similarity of A Tale of a 
Tub to the Supposes and as Jonson got part of the plot of The 
Magnetic Lady from that play. There are also references to Sir 
Bevis and Guy in III, 3, and to Fabyan in I, 2. 

But the strongest reason for assigning A Tale of a Tub to an 
early date is found in the nature of the work itself. Unless the 
play belongs to the decadence of Jonson's art, it inevitably sug- 
gests his apprenticeship. It does not seem appropriate to the year 

Tleay, Biog. Chron. English Drama, Vol. I, p. 370; Schelling, Eliz. 
Drama, Vol. I, p. 326; for the reference to Blurt see A Tale of a Tub, 
II, 1, p. 450. 

^I might add to his evidence the fact that The Life and Death of 
Captain Thomas Stukeley has a Blurt who is a bailiff, and, while the 
play seems to have been first printed in 1605, it may have been written 
much earlier. Cf. Simpson, School of Shakspere, Vol. I, pp. 153, 154. 

''Fleay sees here references to the morality Cloth Breeches and Velvet 
Hose of 1600. Cf. Biog. Chron. English Drama, Vol. I, p. 370. 



A Tale of a Tub 77 

1601, when Jonson's ideals in comedy were altogether opposed to 
such work. The stage quarrel, too, was then at its height, and 
yet A Tale of a Tub, in my opinion, takes no part in it. But the 
play is a fairly good antecedent to The Case is Altered and Every 
Man in his Humour; and it shows some motives more fully de- 
veloped in Jonson's other plays. Besides, as will be shown later, 
it is closely akin to a. whole group of plays that went out of fashion 
just at the opening of the seventeenth century. 

The play in its present form was licensed for the Blackfriars in 
1633 and was included by Sir Kenelm Digby in the second folio 
of Jonson's works. Jonson himself would perhaps have withheld 
the play from print. Indeed, it must have been due to the poverty 
of his old age, to the small success of his attempts at new plays, 
and to his fierce desire to put Inigo Jones among clowns that he 
revived the play at all. An additional reason for his passing favor- 
ably upon this early effort is perhaps to be found in the fact that 
his attitude toward what furnished legitimate comic material had 
been modified during his later career; and, indeed, as early as 
Bartholomew Fair he had turned to a type of play nearer akin to 
A Tale of a Tub than were the plays which had been written be- 
tween the two, and had, moreover, worked out a critical defense of 
Bartholomew Fair, as Drummond tells us. Many antimasques 
show Jonson's interest in the clowns and rogues of England, par- 
ticularly during the second half of his literary career. The same 
interest is to be traced in The Staple of News and The Magnetic 
Lady, and the latter play, especially, shows some kinship to A Tale 
of a Tub. The Sad Shepherd with its Eobin Hood and Eobin 
Goodfellow is a return to themes most popular in the English 
drama at the time when A Tale of a Tub must have been first writ- 
ten. Indeed, the strongest evidence against an early date for 
A Tale of a Tub is the fact that the weakening of Jonson's power 
as a dramatist and his growing fondness for treating the peasantry 
might well prepare us for just such a play as A Tale of a Tub at 
a late period in his life. For instance, the two parts of Love's 
Welcome, which are very closely related to this play through char- 
acters and scenes, were presented in the years 1633 and 1634, at the 
very time of the revival of our play. 

Accepting A Tale of a Tub as early work of Jonson that was 
later revised, we can determine the changes with comparative ease. 



78 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

not only by means of the satire against Inigo Jones, but also by 
means of the decided difference of tone and attitude in the handling 
of the clowns. Fleay (Biographical Chronicle of the English 
Drama, Vol. I, pp. 370, 371, and 386) has pointed out the new 
material. It consists of the short scene, IV, 2; about fifty lines 
inserted in V, 2, from "Can any man make'' to "trust to him 
alone"; and from "I must confer" in V, 3 to the end of the play. 
The added material does not have any value for the plot, and 
usually fails to harmonize with the rest of the play. In IV, 2, 
In-and-in Medlay, the joiner or cooper, is described in such a way 
as to be easily identified with Jones; and, though the constable is 
elsewhere throughout the play spoken of as the Queen's man, he 
is here twice called the King's man. The second addition, — in 
V, 2, — which also concerns Medlay as Jones, belongs to the prep- 
aration for the puppet-show rather than to the plot of the play. 
The first few lines of the scene, with their reference to the Queen, 
are evidently a part of the old draft of the play. From the en- 
trance of Tub and Hilts to the entrance of Lady Tub with Dame 
Turfe and others would mark the inserted matter if we consider 
with Small {Stage-Quarrel, p. 176) the use of the word joiner as 
indicating the distinction between Medlay as Jones and Medlay as 
the cooper. This distinction will not hold, I believe. In I, 2, 
Medlay the cooper chooses as his song for the brideale the Jolly 
Joiner, "for mine own sake," as he says ; while in V, 2, when Jon- 
son, not content with satirizing Jones as In-and-in Medlay, must 
also bring in the name of Vitruvius,^ he speaks of Vitruvius as a 
London cooper. The insertion in this scene, then, probably does 
not begin with the entrance of Tub and Hilts, but, as Fleay asserts, 
about twenty lines farther on. After Hilts has introduced Tub to 
the clowns. Tub says, 

I long, as my man Hilts said, and my governor, 

To be adopt in your society. 

Can any man make a masque here in this company? 

The sudden break at "Can any man make a masque?" seems to me 

^The use of the name Vitruvius may have been suggested by a very 
complimentary epigram on Inigo Jones in Davies' Scotirge of Folly; it 
has the title. To my much esteemed Mr. Inego lones, our English Zeuxis 
and Yitruuius. Epig. 157. Davies praises Jonson in the preceding epi- 



A Tale of a Tub 79 

to be unnatural, and to indicate that Jonson inserted the section 
crudely into the play. From this point to the entrance of Lady 
Tub the satire on Jones is clear, but upon her entrance the action 
of the play is resumed. About fifty lines, then, or at most seventy- 
five, were inserted here, and very little more in IV, 2. 

The actual plot closes in V, 3, with Tub's graceful acceptance 
of the situation and his welcome of the company to a wedding 
supper ; and here the play ended as acted at court. It is uncertain 
whether the remainder of the play in its present form — the part 
dealing witli the preparation and presentation of the puppet-show — 
is an addition or merely a substitute for some other entertain- 
ment in the older version. Small (Stage-Quarrel, p. 176) came 
to the conclusion that there was originally a masque presented by 
Diogenes Scriben. This does not seem improbable. The conjec- 
ture is tempting that Love's Welcome at Welheck, presented in 
1633 and dealing with clownish sports in honor of a marriage, was 
an outgrowth of the discarded ending of A Tale of a Tub; but a 
number of minor points, as the fact that Awdrey's wedding occurs 
in February, a month unfavorable to outdoor sports, discounte- 
nance such a theory. 

For a play of its type A Tale of a Tub is well plotted, and, out- 
side of the additions satirizing Jones, there is almost nothing that 
seems useless or inharmonious. On the other hand, the treatment 
of Medlay in the inserted matter is inconsistent with his character 
as shown in the rest of the play. Elsewhere he is the most incon- 
spicuous of the clowns. He speaks only a few lines in the reflec- 
tions of the "four wise masters," and only once does he make a 
speech of more than a line or two. These few sentences from him, 
however, show that he is the least distinctive of the group, and 
that he has a faculty for blundering in the use of words. As 
Jones, Medlay is described rather fully, occupies the attention of 
his group of clowns, and has pet words, which he uses with affecta- 
tion and a pretense at precision. It is possible, of course, that 
Jonson revised the play considerably or added scattered passages, 
but the indications are against it, for in case of considerable re- 
vision the use of the word queen would have been corrected and 
Medlay's character would have been developed early in the play 
in a m.anner suitable for satire against Inigo Jones. 

A Tale of a Tub as a whole, then, may be regarded as an Eliza- 



80 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

bethan product, and a study of its relations to other plays shows 
that it belongs to the type of comedy that immediately preceded 
the comedy of manners. If the early date of A Tale of a Tub is 
accepted, we see Jonson at the very opening of his career studying 
and imitating the most thoroughly indigenous types of English 
comedj^, the country bumpkin, the country squire, the constable, 
the sturdy sei'vingman. In plot, too, the play shows the trend 
that native English comedy was taking in its strivings for struc- 
tural unity and vigorous action. It is true that no direct source 
for A Tale of a Tuh has been found, so that Jonson was here 
exhibiting his independence in literary work, but enough parallels 
can be shown to indicate the influence of contemporary literature 
and to strengthen the probability that the play was produced before 
the close of the sixteenth century. In citing these parallels I hope 
it will be clearly understood that I am making no pretense at deal- 
ing with sources; my object is merely to suggest literary conven- 
tions or trends that probably influenced Jonson. 

The connection of many of the characters in A Tale of a Tub 
with types in the early English drama has been indicated by Eck- 
hardt in Die lustige Person im dlteren englisclien Drama. The 
fact that these types represent conventional modes of treatment 
rather than first-hand studies of life is noticeable even in Jonson's 
work. Tlie stage type is conventional; color is given by realistic 
touches drawn from the observation of life. For Jonson's play 
some parallels in character treatment that seem to me worth par- 
ticularizing will be noticed in the study of plot motives, and some 
independently. 

The development of these characters naturally came before the 
development of plots suitable for presenting them. In morality 
and then in chronicle play, the wit, resourcefulness, and energy of 
English rogues and democratic yeomen, the individuality and pic- 
turesqueness of men and women of low life, with their characteris- 
tic occupations, amusements, and foibles, were early utilized. But 
even when Latin comedy began to teach English dramatists how to 
handle their characters through organized plot and thus give full 
force to the presentation, the tendency remained to give only in 
episodic form what was genuinely English or belonged to low life. 
The romantic comedy often emphasized this tendency. At the 
same time the attempt to write plays dealing with native life and 



A Tale of a Tub 81 

tradition became more frequent. Methods of plotting, accordingly, 
had to be invented or borrowed. The weakness of early efforts is 
apparent in such a play as Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay. An 
advance was made when the plots dealt more and more with one 
situation and one line of interest; but incident and action were 
increasingly demanded in the drama, and it was difficult to sustain 
action through a whole play developing only one motive. Compli- 
cation, then, along with unity was secured by repeating and vary- 
ing one situation again and again, apparently with little idea of 
utilizing various events all for one end. 

In A Tale of a Tub the intrigue that sets the events into motion 
concerns itself with the country girl Awdrey, who is on the point 
of being married by her parents to the man of their choice. Other 
lovers interfere. The conflict to control the girl is doubtless from 
Latin comedy at bottom, but the handling is purely English. The 
scenes shift back and forth across the fields of Pinsbury, and first 
one side and then another seems to win the victory in the ups and 
downs of the conflict. The rapidity of action does not depend 
upon the multiplicity of elements entering into the final result, 
all of which must be shaped to one end as in The Silent Woman, 
but upon a kaleidoscopic combhiation and recombination of the 
same elements. As one party gains, the other falls, only to be 
thrown into the ascendency in a moment. The girl is merely 
tossed back and forth. 

This see-saw rather than a steady advance in plot was common 
in the drama, especially at the end of the sixteenth century. In 
all the plays of this class, whether accidentally or not, the treat- 
ment of clowns is prominent, and often folk customs and super- 
natural elements from folk-lore enter in. As regards action, the 
type of drama seems to have secured its hold through Menaechmi, 
further developed by Shakespeare in The Comedy of Errors, where 
accident and the confusion of identity result in first one combina- 
tion and then another in the tangled maze of incidents. Certain 
romantic comedies, also, such as Common Conditions, John a Kent 
and John a Cumber, Mucedorus, and Midsummer Night's Dream, 
seem to lead definitely toward A Tale of a Tub. Dissimilar as 
these plays are, there are some elements common to them and Jon- 
son's play. In each, for instance, a girl is the center of the action, 
and the scenes shift back and forth in the open. 



82 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

Common Conditions (1576) shows most clearly the connection 
of such plotting with the metrical romances, where the action is 
dependent upon the continual formation of situations of adventure 
that do not lead toward the denouement and that often close with 
results contrary to the final solution. In this play the passing 
of the girl from one hand to another as the pursuit sweeps through 
a series of confused windings in the open furnishes the adven- 
ture and the intrigue. Mucedorm (printed in 1598), itself de- 
rived in part from the Arcadia, represents the same wanderings 
in field and wood that we have in Common Conditions. Here 
again there is a series of adventures akin to the romances, but 
Amadine is the center of all as is Awdrey, fortune favoring fii-st 
Segasto, the father's choice, then Mucedorus, then Segasto again 
through the banishment of Mucedorus, then the wild man of the 
woods, and finally Mucedorus. One notable passage of A Tale of 
a Tub (III, 1, p. 457) has been traced to Mouse of Mucedorus 
(I, 4, 11. 128-130) and Bullithrumble of Selimus (11. 1977 ff.).^ 
Clay says almost in the exact words of Mouse: 

I have kept my liands herehence from evil-speaking, 
Lying, and slandering; and my tongue from stealing. 

The closest connection, indeed, between Mucedorus and A Tale of 
a Tub is in the clowns Mouse and Puppy. Both are prone to fear 
and superstition. Mouse fears that the bear is the devil in dis- 
guise; Puppy cries out at the terrible apparition of the devil when 
he sees Clay in the straw of the barn. Both clowns make non- 
sensical answers by giving the most literal and obvious answers. 
Both are largely concerned with eating. Bullithrumble, also, with 
his fear of devils, his love of eating, etc., belongs to the same sub- 
division of the great class, and all three clowns are evidently 
related. 

The Two Italian Gentlemen- (1584) shows little similarity to 
A Tale of a Tub in the cause and form of the shifting action, but 
it sets forth a complicated love intrigue in which ups and downs 
and varied combinations succeed each other rapidly. The presence 

^Eckhardt, Die lustige Person, p. 325. The passage is, of course, de- 
rived by perversion of language from the English liturgy. 

"Cf. Collections of the Malone Society (Vol. I, pp. 218 ff.) for evidence 
that establishes a claim for Chapman's authorship of Two Ital. Gent, that 
is stronger than Munday's perhaps. 



A Tale of a Tub 83 

here of two girls,'^ who are themselves, un]ike Awclrey, active in 
the intrigue, renders the action still more complicated, while the 
confusion of night scenes adds to the general medley characteristic 
of plays of the type. The love aH'airs of the maid Attilia, also, 
who is shifted from pedant to soldier, and the arrest of Crackstone 
just when he believes himself about to succeed in his intrigue to 
marry Victoria are suggestive of A Tale of a Tub. A second play 
of Munday's, John a Kent and John a Cumber {ca. 1595), is 
nearer in many respects to A Tale of a Tub. Though it differs 
greatly in the types and combinations of the central characters, it 
has as the exciting force the plan of fathers to marry off, against 
their will, daughters alread}'- secretly betrothed. In the conflict 
arising for the possession of the girls — here again there are two 
girls and both are active intriguers — success falls first to one party 
and then another, while the intriguing forces combine, dissolve, 
and recombine, shifting the scenes back and forth from castle to 
wood and town as in A Tale of a Tub. Here, however, the inter- 
est is centered in the contest of two magicians on the opposing 
sides. The clowns Tom Tabrer, Turnop, and Sexton Hugh, with 
their pageant for Morton and Pembroke, though nearer to the 
clowns of Love's Labour's Lost and A Midsummer Night's Dream, 
are not unlike those of -1 Tale of a Tub. Sexton Hugh and 
Turnop have names reminding one of Chanon Hugh and Mar- 
gery Turn-up in A Tale of a Tub, the last of whom is merely 
mentioned (II, 1, p. 454). With Munday's clowns as with Jon- 
son's, the drollery arises partly from the respect of others for the 
superior wisdom of the chief clown.- The dramatic and play in- 
stinct of the rustics, too, is exhibited. To an extent the same pur- 
suit in the open and the same alternation of situation is found in 
A Midsummer Night's Dream, which also deals with the love in- 
trigues of two girls ; and the drolleries of the clowns are very much 

'The Italian original of Tico Ital. Gent. — Pasqualigo's II Fedele — I have 
not seen, but Fraimce's Victoria, which is said to be closer to this Italian 
play than is Two Ital. Gent. (cf. Mod. Lang. Rev., Vol. Ill, pp. 177 ff.), 
is not so clearly a forerunner of A Tale of a Tub as is the English play, 
since the principal intrigue in Victoria is for a married woman's favors 
and not for marriage. 

=Cf. A Tale of a Tub, I, 2, p. 444, where Puppy says of Turfe: 
He's in the right; he is high-constable, 
And who should read above 'un, or avore hun? 



84 English Elements in Jonson's Eai-ly Comedy 

in the tone of Jonson's play. Shakespeare's play is not so close to 
the general type, however, for the cross wooings are of a different 
sort. 

In Mother Bomhie {ca. 1590) there are some motives aldn to 
those of A Tale of a Tub. The plan of fathers for a marriage of 
their children is thwarted, and, through the intriguing of the 
pages, matches seem on the point of being made, only to be un- 
made. The foolish and vulgar girl who plays a part in the mar- 
riage intrigue of Mother Bomhie is also characterized in many 
places like Awdrey of A Tale of a Tub. In Wily Beguiled, again, 
we have the exciting force of a father's plan for the marriage of 
his daughter, and the intrigue that upsets it. This play, though 
not printed till 1606, is by common consent placed much earlier; 
by Professor Schelling before 1595, and by Fleay in 1596 or 1597.^ 
There are three rival suitors, but the alternation is not so marked 
as in some other plays of the group. Churftis dupes the father of 
the girl and both the rival suitors, promising each to work in 
his interest and meanwhile trying to marry the girl himself. 
In types of character the play is somewhat akin to A Tale of a Tub. 
Like Justice Preamble, Churms, the lawyer, while he is plotting 
to win the girl, gets possession of the father's money by trickery. 
Eobin Goodfellow, the ally of Churms, is the means of revealing 
the lawyer's intrigues to the noble suitor, as Miles Metaphor 
is in A Tale of a Tub. Similarities in these minor points may be 
called accidental, for the detailed treatment of characters and sit- 
uations differs widely. 

Two plays very dissimilar to A Tale of a Tub and yet showing 
something of the same dramatic art are Lool- About Yon and Two 
Angry }Yomen of Ahington. They may have come after A Tale 
of a Tub, though some students of the drama have assigned to 
both of them dates that would in all probability place them before 
Jonson's play. At any rate, they indicate the extension of the type 
of study seen in A Tale of a Tub. Look About You is worth 
mentioning merely because it shows the same fondness that we 

^Cf. Schelling, Eli:s. Drama, Vol. I, p. 319; Fleay, Biog. Chron. Eng. 
Drama, Vol. II, p. 159; Ward, Hist. Eng. Dram. Lit., Vol. II, p. 612. 
The induction certainly seems to contain a number of references to the 
satiric comedies of the end of the century, and some echoes of Marston; but 
the body of the text was probably early enough to influence Jonson in 
A Tale of a Tub. 



A Tale of a Tub 85 

fiud in Jonson's play for quick transference of scene from point 
to point around London, for surprising complications in the course 
of an intrigue, and for the rapid alternations of successes and fail- 
ures. The story, however, is a cross between rogue tale and chron- 
icle, and has little kinship with A Tale of a Tub. In The Two 
Angry Women of Abington, there is again the plotting of a father 
for the marriage of a daughter. Here the intrigue is difEerent, 
since the mothers are pitted against the fathers, and there are no 
rival suitors; but the types of character, the shifting of scenes in 
the fields, and the pandemonium of adventure are worth noting.^ 
The girl, like Awdrey, is vulgar and ready for any marriage. 
Nicholas, or Proverbs, and Miles Metaphor are companion studies, 
and Dick Coomes is the bold, testy servingman, like "resolute" 
Basket Hilts. 

Englishmen for my Money (1598) may be mentioned, also, as 
belonging to the type. Here the father has three daughters and 
plans to marry them all to foreign suitors instead of the English- 
men with whom they are in love. The girls, who are active in the 
plot against their father, pass first to the foreigners, then to the 
lovers, and back to the foreigners, the Englishmen, of course, win- 
ning finally. The same miscarriage of plans and preponderance 
of accident that is characteristic of A Tale of a Tub occurs here. 
As in The Two Italian Gentlemen and The Two Angry Women 
of Abington, night scenes add to the confusion. 

In "Simon Eyre," one of the tales in the first part of Deloney's 
Gentle Craft (1597), there are two chapters (III and V) that give 
a story typical of the interest at the time in the comic love in- 
trigues of prentices and such underlings of society. The lovers 
are treated unromantically as in A Tale of a Tub, and exhibit the 
same rough humor and ready craft. The work was probably too 
late to affect A Tale of a Tub, but it furnishes a non-dramatic 
example of a type somewhat akin to Jonson's play. Haunce, the 
Dutchman, by a false tale turns Florence from a meeting with 
John, the Frenchman, at Islington, where they are to have a feast; 
and Haunce and Florence go to Hogsden. Having destroyed the 
intimacy of John and Florence, Haunce becomes the accepted 

^The pastoral play, of course, shows some of this same dramatic see- 
saw and base-playing and circuitous love intrigue, as in The Faithful 
Shepherdess. 



86 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

suitor of the girl. Later, with the help of Nicholas^ a new rival, 
John gets vengeance by breaking up a little merrymaking on the 
part of the two lovers and showing Haunce up in an unfavorable 
light. Still Haunce wins the girl, and a time is set for the mar- 
riage secretly. ISTicholas and John succeed in getting the Dutch- 
man so drunk that he can not appear at the wedding, and Nicholas 
rushes off to play the bridegroom. John circumvents Nicholas, 
however, by having him arrested on a criminal charge, and him- 
self meets the girl. It is just at this moment that John's French 
wife appears on the scene. Nicholas finally wins because he is 
English. In A Tale of a, Tub we have the same shifting scenes 
in the suburbs of London. Here as in "Simon Eyre," while the 
parson presumably waits at the church, the girl passes from suitor 
to suitor. In Jonson's play, too, a rival suitor delays the mar- 
riage by throwing the bridegroom under suspicion of having com- 
mitted a robbery, and finally a pretended legal summons calls Tub 
away as he is about to win out. When Tub once more has the 
girl in his possession, he is hurried off by his mother, as John is 
borne away by his wife. Martin, the dark horse, finally wins the 
girl. 

Some minor incidents of A Tale of a Tub find parallels in plays 
belonging to the end of the sixteenth century. 

In A Tale of a Tub Chanon Hugh first ofPers to secure Awdrey 
for Squire Tub, aud later accepts a larger bribe from Preamble for 
working in his interest. Hugh becomes the intriguer and manip- 
ulator of the action, only to be outwitted at last. The part of 
Hugh seems commonplace; if it occurred in only one play, it might 
be ascribed to accident.^ But it occurs in a number. In Sup- 
poses, for instance, there is the most natural use of the inotive. A 
parasite offers help, for profit of course, to rival lovers in turn. 
In Grim., Collier of Croyden^ Shorthose, like Hugh a parson, ac- 

^This motive may have come from the parasite or Roman slave. In 
Misogonus the shave pretends to be faitliful to both father and son. Of 
course the treatment of such "two-faced" characters was frequent. Am- 
bodexter is a favorite name for them. Cf. Cambises ; Bullein's Dialogue 
against the Fever Pestilence ; Stubbes's Anatomy of Abuses, Part I, p. 141, 
and Part II, p. 7, where the name Ambodexter is applied to the Jesuits; 
Pierce Penilesse and Haue loith you to Saffron-tvalden, Works of Nashe, 
ed. McKerrow, Vol. I, p. 162. and Vol. Ill, p. 10.5; Qtiip for an Upstart 
Courtier, Works of Greene, Vol. XI, p. 252 ; etc. 

-In this play the Devil says of his wife: "Though she be a shrew, yet 
is she honest" (Hazlitt's Dodsley, Vol. VIII, p. 429). Drummond's 



A Tale of a Tub 87 

cepts bribes of two lovers of Joan, the miller and the collier, but 
attempts to thwart each and secure the girl for himself. These 
characters are clowns of the type found in A Tale of a Tub. In 
Satiromastix Tucca takes toll of Prickshaft and Shorthose (who 
has the same name as the parson of Grim) to secure Widow Min- 
ever for each, and yet would win her for himself.^ These last two 
plays would, of course, come after the date to which I should 
assign A Tale of a Tub. 

In making the constable Turfe the central dupe of A Tale of a 
Tub and grouping around him Medlay, Clench, and To-Pan, as his 
headborough, petty constable, and thirdborough, Jonson has given 
us our most extensive burlesque of the constable. The interest in 
constables began early. A stupid and credulous cobbler who is 
constantly being played upon serves as officer in llie Famous Vic- 
tories of Henry V. In Endimion (IV, 2) there are a head con- 
stable and some watchmen who discuss their duty with learned 
reasons and whose "wits are all as rustie as their bils." In Leir 
(scenes xxvii and xxix of the Malone Society reprint) we have 
among watches the same sort of nonsense in the way of formal 
reasoning. In A Tale of a Tub the assistants of Turfe, like these 
watchmen and the immortal Dogberry and Verres, fall into learned 
arguments ;- and, as in Endimion, an appeal is made to the con- 
stable as final authority (I, 2)." Dull of Love's Labour's Lost 
(1, 1), who like To-Pan is a tharborough, and whom Hoi of ernes 
describes with the words, "Twice-sod simplicity" (IV, 2), is guilty 
of the same misuse and misunderstanding of words that we find 
in Much Ado and A Tale of a Tub. In fact. Love's Labour's Lost 
and A Tale of a Tub reflect upon the stage the great interest in 
diction that possessed the English at the time.* For Jonson as 
yet the satire is humorous; soon it becomes deadly. 

account of Jonson's famous remark about his wife has almost the same 
wording. 

^Cf. 1. 1158, etc. In Magnetic Lady Parson Palate is retained by- 
Practice to help him win Pleasance, but later marries her to Compass, 
though not without pretense of objection. 

-Much Ado may have been drawn from an old play which possibly 
dealt with these types. Cf. Furness, Much Ado, in Variorum Shake- 
speare, pp. xx-xxii. 

'The discussion of the question whether "verse goes upon A-eet" may be 
a satiric thrust at Gabriel Harvey's ideals of verse. 

*Cf. G. Gregory Smith, Eliz. Grit. Essays, Vol. I, pp. Iv-lj:. 



88 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

In A Tale of a Tub (Y, 2), when Turfe comes home to find that 
he has been beguiled of his daughter and of his money as well, he 
cries out, 

I am cozened, robbed, undone: your man's a thief, 
And run away with my daughter. Master Bramble, 
And with my money. 



My money is my daughter, and my daughter 
She is my money, madam. 



The passage, of course, suggests at once The Merchant of Venice 
(II, 7). In Wily Beguiled, also, the father, like Shylock a miser, 
when he finds that Churms has tricked him out of money and has 
eloped with his daughter, cries out (Hazlitt's Dodsley, A^ol. IX, 
p. 319), "I am undone, I am robbed! My daughter! my money! 
Which way are they gone?" In Greene's Never too Late (Works, 
Vol. VIII, pp. 56, 57) we have the same situation. Fregoso "cried 
out as a man halfe Lunaticke, that he was by Francesco robde of 
his onely iewell." Then follows his complaint to the mayor that 
he has lost both daughter and plate. The resemblance here, how- 
ever, seems to be merely accidental. The Case is Altered (cf. 
p. 102 infra) contains a scene of the same kind, which is nearer 
The Merchant of Venice than is the situation from A Tale of a 
Tub. 

Finally, Miles Metaphor's report (III, 4) to his master after the 
failure of his first mission to get Awdrey recalls FalstafE's account 
to the Prince of how he was robbed of the money which he had 
helped to take from tlie travelers (I Henry IV, II, 4). 

Many parallels to Jonson's title have been traced.^ The best 
illustration of its meaning is to be found, I think, in Gascoigne's 
Certain Notes of Instruction (1575) : "If you . . . neuer 
studie for some depth of deuise in the Inuention, and some figures 
also in the handlyng thereof, it will appeare to the skilfull Reader 
but a tale of a tubbe." The title, then, is a confession of the slight- 
ness of the work in Jonson's estimation. 

^Cf. 5 IV. and Q., Vol. XI, p. 505; Vol. XII, pp. 215 f.; Ward, Hist. 
Eng. Dram.. Lit., Vol. II, p. 379, note; Harvey, Pierces Supererogation, 
Works, Vol. II, p. 213; D. N. B., Vol. 38, p. 436; etc. The meaning is 
quite clear in a number of the passages using the term. The best illus- 
tration outside of Gascoigne is found, perhaps, in Wilson's Arte of Rhet- 
orique, p. 101. 



A Tale of a Tub 89 

y 

On the whole there is little in common between A Tale of a Tub 
and Jonson's otlier work, and the play leads forward very little 
toward Jonson's characteristic comedy. It is rather primitive in 
most respects. Here and to a slightly less extent in The Case is 
Altered, the interest in incident is dominant, whereas in the four 
comedies that followed incident is neglected. Besides the primitive 
type of plot in the play, almost all the characters represent in some 
details the old conventions of vice, fool, and clown. Jonson, how- 
ever, handles these types, not with the spirit of abandon and de- 
light that is customary in the older drama, but with obvious satire 
and burlesque. The tone of the play, in other words, is often char- 
acteristic of Jonson, but in material and type A Tale of a Tub 
looks backward. 



CHAPTER V 

THE CASE IS ALTERED 

The Case is Altered was probably written after A Tale of a Tub. 
Certainly in general structure it represents an advance over the 
more or less primitive Elizabethan type exemplified in A Tale of 
a Tub, although the superior art of moving steadily forward in 
plot may have been due to the borrowing from Plautus. Further- 
more, as far as the internal evidence of style and thought is con- 
cerned, the play seems to stand between A Tale of a Tub and Every 
Man in his Humour. Especially is this true of the tentative studies 
of humours in The Case is Altered, for in A Tale of a Tub the 
treatment of types is in no case from the point of view of humours 
and the word humour occurs only once, while in Every Man in 
the idea of humours is dominant. Again, the play represents a 
point in the development of his satire where Jonson has passed 
beyond the unmixed burlesque of A Tale of a Tub and has not 
yet reached the broader scope of his satiric treatment that begins 
with Every Man in. Clownish figures still furnish a large part of 
the humor in The Case is Altered, — indeed this form of humor is 
present in all of Jonson's comedies, — but they share the stage with 
the more pretentious social types. That finer humour of Jonson's 
that springs from a satirical marshaling of the insistent follies of 
the higher social types is scarcely felt, however, except in the im- 
patience of Eerneze. But here again we need to be cautious in 
drawing conclusions, for this play is anomalous to some extent on 
account of its romantic tendency and its Plautine influence. The 
reliance on Plautus in The Case is Altered is very great, while in 
Every Man in Jonson has seemingly learned to handle Plautine ele- 
ments with the utmost freedom. In fine,J:he general spirit of the 
play is more Jonsonian than that of A Tale of a Tub, but far less 
so than that of Every Man in, which represents the maturing of 
Jonson's peculiar powers. 

A statement in The Case is Altered (I, 1) that Antonio Balla- 
dino is "in print already for the best plotter^' furnishes the most 
perplexing element in assigning the play a date before that of 
Every Man in. Anthony IMunday is of course satirized as An- 



The Case is Altered 91 

tonio Balladino, and the reference is quite clearly to the passage in 
Palladis Tamia (entered on the Stationers' Register September 7, 
1598, and published the same year) in which Munday is called 
"our best plotter." Yet in Lenten Stuff e (entered on the Station- 
ers' Register January 11, 1598-9, and published in 1599), Nashe 
asks, "Is it not right of the merry coblers cutte in that witty Play 
of the Case is altered f (Worls, ed. McKerrow, Vol. Ill, p. 220) — 
a clear reference to Jonson's play and to the character of Juni- 
per. Lenten Stiiffe was in all probability completed when it was 
entered on the Stationers' Register, and it hardly seems possible 
that in the four months from September 7 to January 11 Meres's 
work was published, Jonson's play written and probably acted, and 
JSTashe's work prepared, with time for Jonson to make a reference 
to Meres and Nashe to Jonson. The hypothesis that the passage 
satirizing Munday was added after the first production of The Case 
is Altered seems most reasonable. (The play as we know it was 
not published till 1609). To the support of this hypothesis Mr. 
Crawford has brought some very suggestive evidence recently (10 
N and Q., Vol. XI, pp. 41, 42). He shows that four passages 
from The Case is Altered are quoted in Bodenham's Belvedere, and 
that, while the book represents Bodenham's selections, the editing 
of the quotations was undertaken by A. M., who is with little or no 
doubt Anthony Munday, seemingly the originator of the plan for 
the volume. Mr. Crawford argues that Munday would not have 
quoted from The Case is Altered in 1600 if in the form then cur- 
rent the play had held him up to ridicule, and, consequently, that 
the scene in which Munday is satirized was altered after 1600 or 
after the compilation of Belvedere. It is true that the authors' 
names are not affixed to the quotations in Belvedere, but, according 
to Mr. Crawford's idea, Bodenham probably gave the source with 
each selection in handing over the material to A. M., since a list 
of authors quoted is given in the preface. Thus Munday probably 
did not include quotations from Jonson's play unwittingly. The 
fact, also, that Antonio appears only in one scene gives color to the 
theory that the part of the "pageant poet" was a later insertion. 
It is reasonable to suppose, then, that The Case is Altered was on 
the stage by the end of 1597 or early in 1598. 

For a study of the English influence on Jonson, the plot of 
The Case is Altered apparently offers little that is of interest. Its 



92 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

important elements are frankly classic — a combination of incidents 
from the Captivi and the Aulularia of Plautus. From the Captivi 
Jonson has drawn the story of Ferneze and his two sons, Paulo 
and Camillo. The capture of Paulo in war (III, 1) ; the capture 
on the other side of the noble Chamont and of Camillo, the long 
lost son of Ferneze, who as Gasper attends Chamont; the exchange 
of names between the two prisoners of Ferneze (III, 3) ; the dis- 
patch of the supposed Gasper, really Chamont, to negotiate for the 
exchange of Chamont for Paulo (IV, 2) ; the discovery that the 
noble prisoner, through the exchange of names, has been allowed 
to depart ; the torture of the remaining prisoner, who is really the 
son of Ferneze (IV, 5) ; the return of Chamont with Paulo; and 
the discovery of the tortured prisoner's identity — are incidents 
taken from the Captivi. From the Aulularia comes the miser 
story, though often considerably modified. Here Jonson got the 
material or suggestions for the soliloquy of Jaques on the source 
of his gold (IT, 1) ; for his instructions to Eachel to watch the 
house (II, 1) ; for his constant return in anxiety to the hiding 
place of his gold; for the scene between Jaques and Christophero, 
and Jaques and Ferneze (III, 1) even to the details that Jaques 
is suspicious of their motives in greeting him and in suing for his 
supposed daughter's hand, that they misinterpret his anxiety, that 
Jaques leaves several times to inspect his gold, that he declares his 
daughter has no dowry, and that he rejoices at their departure; 
for Jaques's removal of his gold to a new place (III, 2) ; for 
Onion's hiding in a tree; for Jaques's search of Juniper (IV, 4) ; 
and finally for the outcry of Jaques over his loss. The char- 
acterization of Jaques, also, is largely derived from the Aulularia, 
and Eachel is suggested by Phaedra — whom we only hear of in 
Plautus — and as guardian of the home by Staphyla. Besides, some 
of the details in the treatment of Onion are drawn from tliis play. 
The two plots are joined first of all by the romantic love of 
Paulo and Eachel, though other suitors of the girl, especially 
Ferneze himself, serve to unify the action of Jonson's play. A 
second link is found in the motive of the stolen child. Instead of 
being stolen by a fugitive slave, as in the Captivi, Camillo has been 
lost in warfare; but this motive from the Captivi is engrafted on 
the miser story, for Jaques — unlike the miser of the Aulularia, 
who really has a daughter and whose gold comes to him from his 



The Case is Altered 93 

grandfather — has stolen his supposed daughter and his gold. The 
girl proves to be a sister of Chamont, so that Ferneze's discovery 
of his lost son is duplicated by Chamont's discovery of his lost 
sister.^ 

To all this classic material Jonson has added the characters An- 
gelo, Francisco^ Maximilian, the two daughters of Ferneze, and the 
pages. For Strobilus of the Aulularia and minor figures of the serv- 
ant class in Plautus's two plays, Jonson has given us Valentine, the 
traveler; Antonio Balladino, the poet; Juniper, the cobbler; Onion, 
the groom; Christophero, the steward; and four other servants of 
Ferneze. He has also added, along with many minor details, the 
treatment of Paulo's love for Eachel; of Angelo's perfidy; of 
Aurelia's love affair; of the memory of Ferneze's wife; of Maxi- 
milian's responsibility for Paulo; and of the action of the pages 
and clowns except in relation to Jaques. 

Not only in the additional elements of his plot does Jonson show 
evidences of English influence, but also in the treatment of char- 
acters drawn from Plautus, not excepting Jaques, who is the most 
thoroughly Plautine of the figures. These evidences, be it re- 
peated, can not in any case be flatly called proofs of direct bor- 
rowing. Their Value lies in the indication of conventional lines of 
treatment and in the suggestion they give of Jonson's minute study 
of the contemporarv drama. Conventions of both romantic and 
popular drama are to be traced in The Case is Altered, and this 
fact is an excellent indication of the experimental nature of the 
play. In A Tale of a Tub Jonson had tried his hand with the ordi- 
nary comic stage types, and must have been little satisfied with the 
results of his burlesque treatment. The comedy of manners had 
not yet justified itself by producing pure masterpieces, and Jonson 
in The Case is Altered turned to the only dignified or artistic 
comedy that the stage afforded, the romantic comedy. He modi- 
fied his romanticism considerably, however, and elevated the clown- 
ish figures, or rather added potency to the treatment of them. The 
whole group of servants gives Jonson his outlet for satire, but 
especially Juniper, who serves for the satire on current follies and 
absurdities in the affectation of elegant speech. Of the serious 

^Most of these details have been pointed out by Gifford in his notes to 
the play and by Koeppel in his Quellen-Studien zu den Dramen Ben 
Jonson's, etc. 



94 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

characters, also, certain ones are more than the conventional fig- 
ures in romantic comedy. Ferneze and his two daughters, espe- 
cially, have been utilized as essays in the study of humours. 

With the object of the satire and the source of the material in- 
volved in the treatment of Juniper, the late Mr. H. C. Hart has 
dealt rather fully. He has shown^ that most of the words misused 
by Juniper in his affectation and pomp may be traced to Gabriel 
Harvey's works. Though it can scarcely be doubted that Jonson 
had Harvey's vocabulary in mind, the attack is apparently not per- 
sonal; at any rate there seems to be no special malice in the treat- 
ment. In attacks on Latinized vocabularies it was seemingly con- 
ventional to use Harvey's as the typically bad one. Harvey's train- 
ing in rhetoric and logic and his reliance on Renaissance rules for 
style naturally led him into a mechanical formality and pomposity 
that furnished a ready point of attack. Supposedly his vocabulary 
is ridiculed in The Old Wives' Tale and Pedantius, and his inflated 
diction plays a large part in Nashe's several satires against him. 
It is noticeable that Jonson does not use the same Harveyisms that 
ISTashe uses; probably, indeed, he deliberately avoided doing so, 
and turned to Harvey's works for a new stock of terms to carry on 
the travesty begun by Nashe. Moreover, it must be remembered 
not only that many of Harvey's terms had come into pretty general 
use by the time of The Case is Altered, but that Harvey's works still 
leave a fairly large proportion of Juniper's perversions unaccounted 
for, so that Jonson must have drawn also upon the general liter- 
ature of his day. In fact, numbers of new terms were doubtless 
passed upon and discountenanced by the more conservative writers, 
and in all likelihood each student like Jonson had a list of con- 
demned neologisms to air. The influence of ISTashe on Jonson's 
attitude to neologisms, again, was probably considerable. 

Aside from the possible element of personal satire involved in 
Juniper's diction, his characterization as the cobbler, the most im- 
portant comic figure of the play, associates him with a type pop- 
ular in contemporary drama and prose literature. From the begin- 
ning, the shoemaker in literature seems to represent the sturdier 
yeoman class, democratic in spirit, independent in attitude, and 
boldly self-reliant. He is never utterly stupid, a purely burlesque 

^9 N. and Q., Vol. XI, pp. 501 f., and Vol. XII, pp. 161 f., 263 f., 342 ff., 
and 403 ff. 



The Case is Altered 95 

figure like the constable:^ In The Pinner of WaJcefield he drinks 
with the English king himself and is granted special privilege by 
him, clearl_y in anticipation of the sturdy characters of The Shoe- 
maker's Holiday; in Tlie Cobler of Canterhurie he becomes a 
satirist and an author; in The Coblers Prophesie he acts as mouth- 
piece of the gods ; and in the folk romances of Deloney and Dekker 
he has equally important roles. The shoemaker of Locrine is a 
burlesque type, but not a stupid one ; in fact, his "witty" lang-uage, 
as will be shown, furnishes our best preparation for Juniper. 

The most important phase in the treatment of the shoemaker as 
a type is found in this "witty"' or picturesque language, and here 
again the type is quite distinct from the constable or watch, the 
second clownish figure in which Jonson and others of the period 
deal with perversion of language. There are two sides to the cob- 
bler's speech. One has to do with the use of a pretentious and 
perverted vocabulary, including picturesque epithets, resounding 
proper names, and often words uttered in chaos for mere sound. 
The otlier is concerned with vivacity of speech — quick phrasing, 
range of figures, slang, abrupt shifts in construction. In general, 
it seems to me that in the plays exalting the yeoman, such as The 
Pinner of Wakefield, there is a tendency to give to his speech as 
he faces kings, nobles, or what not a certain boldness and decisive- 
ness that result in sweep and terseness. The speech that was de- 
veloped in the later drama as appropriate to such characters seems 
also to show the influence of the meter which was often used for 
comic characters all the way through the early drama. This type 
of verse with its short, rapid lines may have had something to do 
with the jerky phrasing of Juniper. Vice, fool, artisan, and rustic 
employ it, and along with the nonsense of these characters there 
often goes a use of ribald speech, homely figures, abusive and odd 
epithets, alliterative plays upon words, and a misuse of Latin 
words in particular. It is but natural that the doggerel verse 
should have its effect upon the prose that succeeded it as the proper 
speech for characters of this type. Will Cricket of Wily Beguiled 
speaks both doggerel verse and doggerel prose, and the same mix- 
ture appears elsewhere in the drama before Jonson. Doggerel 

^An exception to tliis is found in John Cobler of The Famous Victories 
of Henry V, who is both cobbler and, as he says, a "bad officer" of the 
constable. 



96 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

verse, indeed, is utilized in many fairly late plays. Munday used 
Skeltonic meter in The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington, 
and Jonson used it at a much later period in some of his anti- 
masques. Into prose went also the love of slang, abuse, plays upon 
words, and varied forms of misuse of words. The characters who 
twist the pronunciation of Latin words are numerous, and as early 
as Mankind sport seems to be made in the drama of Latinized 
vocabularies (cf. Macro Plays, E. E. T. S., p. xviii). In the middle 
of the sixteenth century the critical discussion of borrowed terms 
and the contradictory opinions held on the subject induced writers 
to pay excessive attention to diction both for satiric and for humor- 
ous purposes. The influence of this trend is very evident in all 
of Jonson's early plays. Two ways of treating Latinized vocab- 
ularies are especially marked : one consisted in the burlesque use 
by clowns, fools, etc. ; the other, in the pedantic use. Jonson ren- 
ders the pedantic use more ludicrous by adding the vocabulary of 
Harvey to the clownish diction of Juniper. 

Both phases of the shoemaker's language, its perversion and its 
raciness, seem to develop naturally from The CoMers Prophesie to 
Locrine^ and on to The Case is Altered. Ealph of The Cohlers 
Prophesie, like Juniper, is the chief clownish figure in a play 
half satiric in nature, though his part is more important for the 
serious plot. The amount of perverted language used by Ealph is 
small, for his speech is largely made up of prophecies inspired by 
Mercury. But at times he is just in Juniper's vein. When his 
wife chides him for singing love songs, his reply is (I, 1, 11. 57, 58) : 

Content your selfe, wife, tis my own recantation; 

No loue song neither, but a carrol in beauties condemnation. 

The Latinized vocabulary, the delicate shift in the form of words, 
and the haunting sense of the real meaning all suggest Juniper. 
The prophecies which Ealph utters illustrate the other side of his 
language. They are written in the short, rapid lines of which I 
have spoken, and are full of figures and nonsense verse. 

In Locrine the speech of the shoemaker Strumbo shows some of 
this tendency to rapid phrasing, though here the gentleman's ele- 
gance of diction rather than the clown's vigor is in the ascendency. 

'Whatever the relative dates of these two plays, the cobbler part in 
Locrine is the more advanced for our purposes. 



The Case is Altered 97 

At the same time the hmguage reveals just the perversion that 
makes it an excellent burlesque or parody and so prepares for 
Juniper. In I, 2, Strumbo appears at his best as a pompous 
speaker. The language is a lover's jargon that in balancing of 
phrases often suggests the rhetorical tricks of the day rather than 
Juniper's speech, as I liave indicated, but the scene shows Strumbo, 
to use his own expression, provided with "a capcase full of new 
coined wordes" : 

. Either the foure elements, the seuen planets, and all the particuler 
starres of the pole Antastiek, are aduersatiue against me, or else I was 
begotten and borne in the wane of the Moone, when euerie thing as 
Lactantius in his fourth booke of Constultations dooth say, goeth asward.^ 
I, maisters, I, you may laugh, but I must weepe; you may ioy, but I 
must sorrow; sheading salt teares from the watrie fountaines of my moste 
daintie fairie eies, ... in as great plentie as the water runneth 
from the buckingtubbes, or red wine out of the hogs heads: for . . . 
the desperate god Cuprit, with one of his vengible birdbolts, hath shot 
me vnto the heele: so not onlie, but also, oh fine phrase, I burne, I burne, 
and I burne a, in loue, in loue, and in loue a. Ah, Strumho, what hast 
thou seen? not Dina with the Asse Tom? Yea, with these eies thou hast 
seene her, and therefore pull them out, for they will worke thy bale. 
Ah, Strumho, hast thou heard? not the voice of the Nightingale, but a 
voice sweeter than hers. Yea, with these eares hast thou heard it, and 
therefore cut them ofl", for they haue causde thy sorrow. . . . Oh 
my heart! Now, pate, for thy maister! I will dite an aliquant loue- 
pistle to her, and then she hearing the grand verbositie of my scripture, will 
loue me presently. 

The letter follows, and Strumbo exclaims on it, "Oh wit I Oh pate ! 
memorie ! hand ! incke ! paper !" Later in the scene, after 
Strumbo has addressed Dorothie in a speech with such Juniperian 
nonsense as "Oh my sweet and pigsney, the fecunditie of my in- 
genie," etc., she complains, "Truly, M[aister] Strumbo, you speake 
too learnedly for mee to vnderstand the drift of your mind, and 
therfore tell your tale in plaine termes, and leaue off your darke 
ridles." Strumbo answers, "Alasse, mistresse Dorothie, this is my 
lueke, that when I most would, I cannot be vnderstood; so that 
my great learning is an inconuenience vnto me." 

^The mixing of a pseudo-scientific jargon with nonsensical learned ref- 
erences, as in the opening of this scene from Locrine, is the trick that 
makes Clove's first speech in Every Man out, III, 1, distinctive in its 
method of perverting speech. 



98 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

Just such rhetorical tricks of balance^ exclamation, interroga- 
tion, and figurative language as are used here by Strumbo and are 
attacked b}^ Shakespeare in Love's. Labour's Lost are treated elab- 
orately in Wilson's Arte of Rhetorique. They occur at times in 
Juniper's speech, but are secondary to inldiornism and slang. Jon- 
son was doubtless too careful of decorum to make Juniper a 
rhetorician. What is of interest for Juniper is the fact that 
Strumbo is represented as a shoemaker who pours forth language 
tortured with excess of ornament, stilted diction, and torrents of 
phrases. A number of similar details, moreover, are to be found 
in the two studies; as when Juniper boasts (II, 4), "0 ingle, I 
have the phrases, man," etc., or Maximilian asks, after a speech 
of Juniper's (I, 2), '"'Doth any man here understand this fellow?" 
and later declares, "Before the Lord, he speaks all riddle I think," — 
all of which is fairly close in thought and even in wording to 
phrases of Strumbo's speech just quoted. Jimiper himself is not 
a lover, though he does undertake to woo Eacliel for Onion. Love 
is treated in the two plays in much the same tone and spirit. 
Indeed, Onion's exclamations as they approach Eachel (IV, 4) 
correspond to one pliase of Strumbo's speech, but the oh's of love 
poetry and prose are frequently satirized in the period. 

Jonson's work in Juniper is thoroughly characteristic of him. 
The treatment of Ealph and Strumbo which I have indicated is not 
sustained, but Juniper is consistent to the end. In fact, he is 
practically a new figure, for only suggestions or faint hints of him 
lie in the forerunners of his type. For instance, in neither Ealph 
nor Strumbo are Juniper's chaotic phrases, full-sounding proper 
names, and unique words of address more than foreshadowed in 
the dimmest fashion. Strings of epithets, often chaotic and 
usually bound together by alliteration, are common in the drama, 
as in the speech of Will Cricket of Wily Beguiled, but they do not 
prepare us for Juniper's wealth of phrases, for the whimsical, 
fresh, and high-sounding epithets that he applies to his fellows, 
or for the buoyancy and good spirit in his application of them. 
These characteristics are perhaps best suggested in some of Fal- 
staff's good-humored, whimsical speeches in I Henry IV, which 
was probably written before The Case is Altered. At any rate, 
Falstaff's language here reveals the possibilities that lie in the epi- 
thet as a device for the portrayal of comic character. The mixture 



The Case is Altered 99 

of heartiness and insulting effrontery in Falstaff's addresses to his 
social and moral superiors certainly appears in Tucca, whether 
there is any influence of the character on Juniper or not. 

A minor convention, hut perhaps a more obvious one, has to do 
with the way in which the shoemaker is introduced on the stage. 
He is usually introduced sitting on his stool at work and singing. 
In the opening scene of The Case is Altered, Juniper is discovered, 
"sitting at work in his shop, and singing." The song gives the 
tone of the characterization of Juniper, for it is close enough to 
the pretentious ballad to furnish an excellent parody. Scene 3 of 
Act IV in The Case is Altered opens similarly. Ealph of The 
Cohlers Prophesie enters during the first scene "with his stoole, 
his implements and shooes, and, sitting on his stoole, falls to sing." 
His song, with its jingling refrain, suggests a parody of the pop- 
ular love ballad. Scene 2 of Act II in Locrine opens with the 
stage direction, "Enter Strumbo, Dorothie, Trompart, cohling 
shooes and singing" — a song of the cobbler's merry life. In The 
Pinner of Walcefield (TV, 3) a shoemaker is introduced "sitting 
rpon the stage at worke," though there is no mention of his sing- 
ing. The singing of cobblers, however, is apparently an accepted 
convention in all the literature that utilizes the type during the 
period around Jonson. The shoemakers of The Cobler of Canter- 
lurie, of Deloney's Gentle Craft, and of Dekker's Shoemaker's Hol- 
iday are all fond of singing, and in Wily Beguiled (Hazlitt's Dods- 
ley, Vol. IX, p. 293) there is mention of "an honest Dutch cobbler, 
that will sing / will noe meare to Burgaine go, the best that ever 
you heard." 

The cobbler was a favorite figure in literature, as has been indi- 
cated. Besides the works mentioned, he appears, for instance, in 
the early Knacl: to Know a Knave, and The Cobler of Queenhithe 
(1597) has been lost. Dekker later, especially in Simon Eyre and 
Firk, has carried on the convention of the cobbler's speech. Eyre 
uses the rapid phrases, picturesque epithets, and high-soimding 
proper names of Juniper.^ With Tucca of Poetaster Jonson re- 
turned to the type of speech, and Dekker followed with his Tucca. 
Shakespeare had been sufficiently attracted by the vogue to open 
Julius Caesar with a shoemaker scene, in which the language takes 

^Cf. Stoll, Mod. Lang. Notes, Vol. XXI, pp. 20-23 for the influence 
of Juniper on Simon Eyre. * 



100 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

the form of puns. The picturesque speech that culminated in 
Juniper and Eyre passed to characters other than the shoemaker, 
and appears in Murley of Sir John Oldcastle, in the Host of The 
Merry Wives of Windsor, and in tlie Host of The Merry Devil of 
Edmonton. Some phases of the type of speech are found in char- 
acters of many later plays, as in the leader of the mob in Philaster. 
Onion belongs to no such distinct type as Juniper. As a clown- 
ish household servant his lines of affiliation are too extensive to be 
traced. The characterization of Onion includes a number of dis- 
tinct features. He is enamored of Antonio Balladino, being as 
right of his "himiour as may be, a plain simple rascal, a true 
dunce," and loves his type of play (I, 1) ; in language he is an 
understudy to Juniper, and his efforts at serious speech result in 
illogical juxtapositions; he plays upon his name (IV, 3 and 4); 
as a lover, he uses ecstatic nonsense made of phrases beginning 
with oil's (IV, 4) ; he seeks others to help him in his love making 
(II, 2 and IV, 3) ; he is expert at the cudgels, but is beaten by a 
novice (II, 4) ; like Sogliardo, he is instructed in court gi-aces 
(IV, 1) ; ]ie has acquired officiousness with his office (I, 1) ; of him 
his master says, "He'll bandy with me word for word; nay more, 
put me to silence," but he quickly repents (I, 2) ; finally, finding 
the gold of Jaques, he turns gentleman and uses it to dress ele- 
gantly and to drink (V, 2). Throughout the play he is the foil 
to Juniper. The name of Onion is used for a friar in the De- 
cameron, and was borrowed for one in Tarlton's News out of Pur- 
gatory. Onion's love-making has already been compared with that 
of Strumbo. His overthrow in cudgel play belongs to folk liter- 
ature, though I do not know of any exactly similar scene. . In the 
ballads Robin Hood unexpectedly meets his match in popular 
heroes, and the shoemakers in The Pinner of Wakefield are over- 
come by the popular George-a-Greene. A hint of Onion's inde- 
pendent attitude toward his master may have been drawn from 
the Aulularia, but the characterization is that of an English serv- 
ingman. Pride in his office and bullying of his master are the 
new turns. In Basket Hilts of A Tale of a Tub Jonson had 
already treated a character similar to Onion in this respect, and in 
Waspe of Bartliolo-mew Fair he afterwards developed the type fairly 
freshly. The scene in The Case is Altered where Onion turns upon 
Ferneze and Maximilian in anger, defies them, and accepts his 



The Case is Altered 101 

dismissal scornfiilly, only to repent immediately and send Juniper 
to intercede (I, 2), is mncli like an incident in Sir Thomas More, 
a play that probably influenced Jonson in other work. Faulkner, 
the servant of Morris, is so proud and insistent that he will be tried 
before no one but More; he is almost as bold in speech to More as 
Onion is to Maximilian; his speech and manner, like Onion's, are 
nonsensical and affected, though Faulkner is a punster; at his last 
appearance he bandies words with his master, as Onion does, wel- 
comes his dismissal, repents at once, and is restored to favor by 
the indulgent Morris. The last episode dealing with Onion, where- 
in he uses his new-found wealth to deck himself out and ape a 
gentleman, shows a commonplace resemblance to a part of James 
IV. In IV, 3 of James IV, Slipper, who like Onion plays upon 
his name, and who has all the clown's conventional quips, cranks, 
and affectations of speech, having gotten money dishonestly, has 
tradesmen to make a gentleman of him, content to spend all for 
one fling, 

Valentine is a traveler only faintly sketched. He seems to be 
one of the earliest examples of his type upon the stage, and is 
probably drawn from non-dramatic literature. Later the opening 
of a drama with the return of one from his travels became popular, 
as in The English Traveller, A Fair Quarrel, The Wild Goose 
CJubse, etc., though the part of the returned traveler is usually 
played by the master rather than by the servant. The conventional 
satire on the boasting of the traveler is lightly touched in The Case 
is Altered. In V, 2, Valentine starts to tell of the wonders of 
Mesapotamia in order to "gull these ganders," but is promptly 
side-tracked. In II, 4, he holds the center of the stage for a short 
time while he discusses the customs of Utopia, especially in regard 
to theatres. The whole manner of this passage is that of the pop- 
ular dialogue of the time, such as Stubbes's Anatomy of Abuses. 
Under cover of the name Utopia, Jonson satirizes the follies of the 
time,^ and praises England as the ideal land, while the questioners 
are merely puppets suggesting the line of talk. According to 
Hart (Worlcs of Ben Jonson, Vol. I, p. xxx), Valentine "foreshad- 
ows, in a transient manner, Asper of Every Man out of his Humour 
and Crites of Cynthia's Revels; that is to say, he is Jonson him- 

^The satire which Jonson puts in the mouth of Valentine on the posing 
dramatic critic is slightly anticipated in Hall's Virgidemiartini, I, 3. 



102 English Eleraents in Jonson's Early Comedy 

self." As evidence he cites the repetition of Valentine's ideas in 
Asper. To my mind, however, this means merely that in The Case 
is Altered Jonson has expressed some of his ideas on stage condi- 
tions through the mouth of one of his characters. Appropriately 
enough, it is the traveler, as the scene is laid in Italy. 

In the incidents connected with Jaques, The Case is Altered 
follows Plautus closely ; but the characterization is fresh, and Eng- 
lish sources may have contributed to it. The niggardliness of the 
Plautine miser, his hoarding of disgusting trifles, etc. are not 
found in Jaques. We hear of his threadbare coat, but Kachel is 
well dressed. The central point of Jaques's character is a worship 
of his gold, a glorification of it. With Plautus the imagination of 
the miser is not fired by his gold, his affection is not awakened so 
fully as in the case of Jaques. The spirit of Jonson's treatment is 
thus somewhat suggestive of Eenaissance influence. Some par- 
allels, indeed, exist in English literature. Avarice of Respuhlica, 
for instance, resembles Jaques in the worship of money. This old 
play does not seem to have been published and may not have been 
known by Jonson. On the other hand, it may be typical of a 
treatment found in plays lost to us or in literature that I have not 
connected with The Case is Altered. The relation between Jaques 
and Avarice could not be very close, and yet the crude characteri- 
zation of Avarice has several distinct suggestions of Jonson's miser 
as well as a number of details that are found in Plautus also. 
Most of all. Avarice's adoration of his gold and his affectionate 
address to it suggest Jaques. In Midas, too, the praise of gold 
(I, 1) is much in the spirit of Jaques, though there are no note- 
worthy parallels. The elopement of Eachel, the discovery on the 
part of Jaques that he has lost both daughter and gold at the same 
time, and his confused cries over his child and his money (V, 1) 
furnish, as has often been noted, a parallel to Shylock and Jessica 
in The Merchant of Venice. Parallels to this scene are pointed out 
under A Tale of a Tub (p. 88 supra), in which there is a similar 
situation.^ 

The other characters in The Case is Altered represent the ro- 
mantic interest of the play, and some of them at the same time 

'For a passage in The Case is Altered that suggests further kinship 
with The Merchant of Venice, see the discussion of Every Man out, p. 165 
infra. 



The Case is Altered 103 

furnish a basis for humour studies. Many incidents are drawn 
directly from Plautus and yet are changed sufficiently to give them 
a romantic cast;, while the characterization does not depend notice- 
ably on the Latin original. In varying from his classic sources, 
Jonson has often approached typical situations of the early roman- 
tic English drama. The most noticeable romantic elements are 
the treatment of love and friendship. In Eachel, highborn but 
occupying a humble position^, and courted by clowns and nobles, 
we have a romantic situation which may be illustrated from the 
early English drama by Faire Em, whose heroine, a lady but 
seemingly merely a miller's daughter, is courted by her father's 
servant and by several gentlemen. The number of Eachel's lovers 
and their shifts to gain access to the girl represent the same type 
of treatment that has already been studied in A Tale of a Tub. 
The love of both father and son for the same girl may have been 
suggested by the love of uncle and nephew in Aulularia; the type 
of rivalry between father and son in Mercator and Casina is not 
suggestive of the romantic device or attitude of Jonson's play. 
The situation combined with other romantic entanglements is 
found in Menaphon. It became a notable device of the English 
drama. The Wisdom of Doctor Dodipoll, in which the love of 
Duke Alphonsus clashes with that of his son, is fairly near The 
Case is Altered, though the play is probably later than Jonson's 
(cf. p. 109 infra). This situation of The Case is Altered was pos- 
sibly borrowed by Chapman for The Gentleman Usher, and a num- 
ber of later plays have parallels, — The Fawne, The Humorous Lieu- 
tenant, Hector of Germanie, etc. 

Common in romantic drama is the rivalry in love between two 
friends, and especially the falseness of one. In Angelo's betrayal 
of Paulo's trust, The Case is Altered is more closely akin to The 
Two Gentlemen of Verona than to anything else. Paulo, leaving 
for war, entrusts Angelo with the secret of his love for Eacliel, and 
commends the girl to his protection. Angelo ignores the claims of 
friendship and determiries to win her for himself. He makes a 
tool of the clownish suitor Christophero in eifecting the escape of 
Eachel, who is led to believe that Paulo has summoned her to join 
him. With Eachel at his mercy, Angelo attempts to win her in 
spite of former repulses, and, failing, would force his love on her. 
Paulo comes in the nick of time, is a witness of his friend's perfidy, 



104 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

and spurns him. only to forgive tlie shamed Angelo forthwith. In 
The Two Gentlemen of Verona Valentine reposes the utmost con- 
fidence in Proteus. Proteus, enamored of Silvia, Valentine's be- 
trothed, betrays him, secures his banishment, and then woos Silvia, 
who, like Eachel, scorns him and reproaches him for his disloyalty. 
Proteus uses a stupid but wealthy suitor to gain access to Silvia, pre- 
tending, like Angelo, to be working in the other suitor's behalf. 
When Silvia finally escapes in search of Valentine, Proteus over- 
takes her and presses his suit, while Valentine, unknown to both of 
them, overhears. At the moment when Proteus becomes dangerous, 
Valentine breaks in upon the scene, and Proteus, repenting imme- 
diately, is forgiven. There are a few slight resemblances of lan- 
guage in the two plays. Angelo says scornfully (III, 1), 

True to my friend in cases of affection! 

and Proteus asks (V, 4), 

In love 
Who respects friend?^ 

For the early part of this particular episode in The Case is Altered, 
Julitis and Hyppolita, one of the suggested sources of The Tiuo 
Gentlemen of Verona, offers a closer parallel than does the Shake- 
spearian play. In Julius and Hyppolita a lover who is forced to 
take a long journey entrusts his beloved to his "friend and brother" 
and is betrayed by him, but for the rest, except in minor details, 
the play does not resemble Jonson's. 

In contrast with the false friend is the treatment of unblemished 
friendship between Camillo and Chamont in The Case is Altered. 
Chamont's escape, with Camillo left as a pledge, is from Plautus, 
as well as the final return of Chamont. But with Plautus there 
is little trace of the equality in love and the perfect confidence 
that exists between Chamont and Camillo. In The Case is Altered 
Camillo, on the point of execution, is firm in his faith that Cha- 
mont will return to redeem him at the appointed time. The 
change in tone of treatment makes the situation very similar to 
that of the old play of Damon and Pithias. There is the same 
sacrificing friendship, the same confidence in the friend's return at 

^The sentiment and some of the situations in both stories are suggestive 
of The Knightes Tale. 



The Case is Altered 105 

the appointed time, the same readiness to die if need be in the 
service of the friend, and the same fond greeting at return. 

Jonson's treatment of Aurelia and Phoenixella, the two daugh- 
ters of Ferneze, shows him apparently in advance of the movement 
in romantic comedy. Aurelia is sprightly, free-spoken, wayward in 
humour, and contemptuous of convention. Phoenixella is sober, 
modest, and altogether steadfast in conduct. Such a contrast be- 
tween sisters or cousins is frequent in the later drama, as in Much 
Ado, The Dutch Courtezan, and The Wild Goose Chase, and some- 
thing of the same thing is found in The Taming of the Shrew. If, 
as Furness has suggested {Variorum Shakespeare, pp. xx-xxii), 
there was an old play with the plot of Much Ado, the play may have 
furnished Jonson an early example of this contrasted pair of girls. 
The scene (II, 3) in which Aurelia and Angelo bandy words repre- 
sents Aurelia as the conventional witty woman of the Eenaissance, 
a type which is also conspicuous in Shakespearian romantic comedy 
(cf. p. 303 infra). 

Maximilian, aristocratic, careful of his honor, a leader of expe- 
ditions, responsible for younger men, and seemingly of middle age, 
is a distinct forerunner of a favorite type in Beaumont and 
Fletcher's plays. Ferneze,^ the impatient, imperious father, is also 
met later in such plays as Monsieur Thomas. For neither char- 
acter can I point out a model. Ferneze, as well as his two daugh- 
ters, is distinctly treated as a humour type. The pages of The 
Case is Altered, with their rascality and their apish mockery of the 
tricks of court — especially with their mastery of compliment — are 
also English types, akin to the pages of Lyly, of Damon and Pithias, 
etc. The French page Pacue, who speaks a mixture of French and 
English, with words ending in a, reminds one of Jaques in James 
IV. There is a similar use of English and French in Englishmen 
for my Money. 

The wealth of motives and material found in The Case is Altered — 
romantic love, romantic friendship, mazes of love entanglement, 
Plautine motives of lost and stolen children, clownish fads and folk 
points of view, satire on word-mongery and especially on unchecked 
follies — exhibits nearly every current that is apparent in the drama 
around 1597, when experiments were being made in many lines. 

The name is common in drama and story. Cf. Farewell to Folly, Laio 
Tricks, Malcontent, Bashful Lover, Patient GrisseU. ^ 



106 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

Certain of the trends are emphasized so strongly that they become 
significant of the future development of Jonson. Word-mongery 
Jonson satirizes elaborately, but it is not yet, as in the later plays, 
connected with the brilliant social types who gave the folly promi- 
nence. The dominant trend of character shown in such studies as 
those of the miser, the imperious man, the word-monger, the sober 
and the vivacious girl, gives promise of Jonson's later ability to 
center attention, with tremendous emphasis, upon the single folly 
or foible of a foolish character, and yet to combine satire on the 
characteristics of the social type with satire on the individual trait, 
thus rendering the newer abstraction for more natural. In the 
four comedies that followed, this interest became more and more 
absorbing, while structurally the plays weakened through the sub- 
mergence of plot in character study. 



CHAPTER VI 

EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOUR 

Every Man in his Humour marks Jonson's complete mastery of 
the comedy of manners. The satirical tone of his work, the influ- 
ence of current forms of literary satire, and above all the scheme 
for a definite program of humours and an extensive use of char- 
acter sketches reach their apogee in Every Man out of his Humour. 
But the dramatis personae of Every Man in are representatives of 
social follies; much of the action results from the indulgence of 
the individual character in the particular tendency or humour 
absurdity that marks him ; and the saeva indignatio of the satirist 
that seems to indicate personal impatience with follies and with 
the concrete types representing follies is developing strength. The 
play is consequently far in ad\ance of either of the two plays rep- 
resenting outgrown tendencies, whatever their dates may be. 

Perhaps the closest link between The Case is Altered and Every 
Man in lies in Jonson's dependence for both plays upon the con- 
ventional situations of Plautine comedy. Brainworm's espousing 
the cause of the son against the father in Every Man in, for in- 
stance, his resourcefulness and daring in the intrigue against the 
father, and his manipulation of events so that the son gets pos- 
session of the girl of whom he is enamored are thoroughly Latin. 
In Every Man in, however, Jonson has not used situations and 
characters derived immediately from Plautine plots as in The Case 
is Altered; the resemblances to the work of Plautus are only very 
general and often lie in phases of treatment that had become more 
or less conventional in the English drama before Jonson. The 
duped father, the gay son, and the equally gay young friend are 
only dimly suggestive of Plautus. Bobadill, the boastful, cowardly 
soldier, is a type from Latin comedy already common in English 
comedy. 

There are no direct sources for any large part of Jonson's plot 
so far as I have been able to discover. Indeed there is little plot. 
With Every Man in, incident becomes of minor importance, and 
here, as in the later plays of the group, the stress is on the char- 
acters. In handling these characters Jonson was undoubtedly in- 



108 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

fliienced by English literature more than by Latin. ISTot only was 
there a strong general tendency in the English drama to conven- 
tionality of treatment, but enough parallels can be pointed out 
between Every Man in and contemporary works to indicate that 
Jonson was a close student of English literature. Indeed, in this 
play, as elsewhere, Jonson's ability to treat freshly what is conven- 
tional, and to surpass his contemporaries in giving consistency to 
interwoven motives marks his measure of independence and orig- 
inality. 

It is, then, chiefly the origin of Jonson's characters that we are 
concerned with. Of these the most interesting for their literary 
connections are the gulls, and they illustrate admirably the fact 
that often what seems newest and most distinctive in Jonson's 
work merely resulted from the hardening into form of plastic 
material found at hand. In this case, however, scarcely so much 
can be claimed as Jonson's share in the work; for, new as was the 
term gull apparently, — and newer still its application to the espe- 
cial type satirized in Every Man in, — the character of the gull had 
already been elaborately analyzed in contemporary literature, as 
we shall see. 

The Hye Way to the Spyttell Rous (ca. 1550) furnishes the 
New English Dictionary with its earliest example of the word gull 
in the derived sense (1. 427) : 

[The clewners] do but gull, and folow beggery, 
Feynyng true doyng by ypocrysy. 

Here the verb apparently means merely to deceive. The next 
Instance of this use that I am able to point out is in the play of 
Sir Thomas More, which may have been written as early as 1590 
(I, 2, 1. 151) : 

But let them gull me, widgen me, rooke me, foppe me! 
Yfaith, yfaith, they are too short for me. 

Kashe uses the term both as verb and as noun, with the meaning 
to dupe or one easily duped. It occurs in The Terrors of the 
Night and The Unfortunate Traveller, both entered on the Station- 
ers' Eegister in 1593, and in the epistle '^'To the Reader" added to 
the 1594 edition of Christs Teares ouer lerusalem.'^ The example 

^Cf. The Works of Nashe, ed. McKerrow, Vol. I, p. 370; Vol. II, pp. 
179, 222, and 298. 



Every Man in Ms Humour 109 

from The Terrors of the Night and one from Shakespeare's Rich- 
ard III are the first uses of the word as a noun that are cited by the 
New English Dictionary. Donne also employs the term early 
(line 59 of his first satire, ca. 1593), and Lodge uses it in Wits 
Miserie, 1596 (p. 4). In A Tale of a Tub, Chanon Hugh assumes 
a disguise "to gull the constable" (III, 5), and the word occurs 
both an noun and as verb in The Case is Altered (III, 3; IV, 3; 
V, 2).^ With the last decade of the sixteenth century, then, the 
word gull to mean a simpleton seems to have come into vogue. 
Doubtless it was a slang term that suddenly sprang into popularity. 
In its early uses the term as a noun has reference merely to one 
easily beguiled and led into folly, and as a verb to the duping of 
such a one. This first view of the gull connects him very readily 
with the fool so popular in all forms of literature throughout the 
century ; and, like many names for the fool, — dotterel, daw, rook, 
etc., — gull may have had its origin in the comparison of a fool to 
a silly bird. The early use in Sir Thomas More with the syno- 
nyms widgeon and rook would suggest this, as well as a passage in 
Wily Beguiled in which goose is associated with gull (Hazlitt's 
Dodsley, Vol. IX, p. 249).- 

True to the temper of the age, the term did not long remain so 
general in its application. Presumably before the word had become 
widely familiar, it had already begun to be restricted to a special- 
ized type of the simpleton. It is to Sir Jolni Davies that we are 
indebted for our first full length portrait of the gull as a type.^ 

^If Wily Beguiled and The Wisdom of Doctor Dodipoll are as early as 
some scholars have thought, they are among the first works using the 
term freely. In Wily Beguiled it occurs three times (Hazlitt's Dodsley, 
Vol. IX, pp. 248, 249, and 276) and as often in Doctor Dodipoll (once in 
III, 2 and twice in Act V). The date of both plays is very uncertain. 
Doctor Dodipoll in its present form seems certainly as late as the end 
of 1599, for in III, 2, Alberdure says: 

Then reason's fled to animals, I see, 

And I will vanish like Tobaccho smoake — 

apparently a satire on the passage in Julius Caesar (III, 2), 

judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts. 

The wording is almost the same as in Jonson's satire on the same passage, 
which is put in the mouth of Clove in Ev. M. out (III, 1). 

^Cf. N. E. D. for this and another possible derivation. 

'The epigrams of Davies were doubtless complete and in circulation by 
the end of 1596. Cf. an article by me on "The Custom of Sitting on the 
Elizabethan Stage" in a forthcoming number of Modern Pjiilology. 



110 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

Having used the word in his first epigram, Davies devotes his 
second epigram to a definition of it: 

Oft in my laughing rimes, I name a Gull: 
But this new terme will many questions breed; 
Therefore at iirst I will expresse at full, 
Who is a true and perfect Gull indeed: 
A Gull is he who feares a veluet gowne, 
And, when a wench is braue, dares not speak to her; 
A Gull is he which trauerseth the towne. 
And is for marriage known a common woer; 
A Gull is he which while he proudly weares, 
A siluer-hilted rapier by his side; 
Indures the lyes and knocks about the eares, 
Whilst in his sheath his sleeping sword doth bide: 
A Gull is he which weares good handsome cloaths, 
And stands, in Presence, stroaking up his haire, 
And fills up his unperfect speech with oaths. 
But speaks not one wise word throughout the yeare: 
But to define a Gull in termes precise, — 
A Gull is he whicii seemes, and is not wise. 

In Epigram 47, "Meditations of a Gull/' Davies reverts to the 
subject: 

See, yonder melancholy gentleman, 

Which, hood-wink'd with his hat, alone doth sit! 

Thinke what he thinks, and tell me if you can. 

What great aft'aires troubles his little wit. 

He thinks not of the warre 'twixt France and Spaine, 



But he doth seriously bethinke him whether 

Of the gull'd people he be more esteem'd 

For his long cloake or for his great black feather. 

By which each gull is now a gallant deem'd; 

Or of a journey he deliberates, 

To Paris-garden, Cock-iiit or the Play; 

Or how to steale a dog he meditates. 

Or what he shall unto his mistriss say: 

Yet with these thoughts he thinks himself most fit 

To be of counsell with a king for wit. 

In 1598, a second satirist, Guilpin, gives an epigram (number 
20) of his Sl-iaJetlieia to further study of the gull, at the same time 
crediting Davies with an earlier definition. Guilpin's elaborate 
picture of the gull, almost certainly too late to have any direct 



Every Man in his Humour 111 

influence on Every Man in, is all the more interesting as showing 
the conventionalized conception in a work appearing in the year 
of Jonson's play. 

TO CANDIDUS 

Friend Candidus, thou often doost demaund 

What humours men by gulling understand: 

Our English Martial! hath full pleasantly, 

In his close nips describde a gull to thee: 

I'le follow him, and set downe my conceit 

What a gull is: oh word of much receit! 

He is a gull, whose indiscretion 

Cracks his purse strings to be in fashion; 

He is a gull, who is long in taking roote 

In baraine soyle, where can be but small fruite: 

He is a gull, who runnes himselfe in debt, 

For twelue dayes wonder, hoping so to get; 

He is a gull, whose conscience is a block. 

Not to take interest, but wastes his stock: 

He is a gull, who cannot haue a whore, 

But brags how much he spends upon her score: 

He is a gull, that for commoditie 

Payes tenne times ten, and sells the same for three: 

He is a gull, who passing finicall, 

Peiseth each word to be rhetor icall : 

And to conclude, who selfe conceitedly, 

Thinkes al men guls : ther's none more gull than he. 

Thus the gull has come to he not m.erely a credulous and simple- 
minded fool, but an affected and pretentious fool. The second 
line of Guilpin's epigram suggests the connection between the gull 
and the study of humours. As gull, like humour, became more 
specific and restricted in its application, it was associated with 
humours to indicate a fool with his particular fads and inclination. 
With Jonson, however, the gull represents the folly that comes not 
from perversion or lack of breadth of view in a man of possible 
worth, as in the humour types, but from shallowness of mind 
accompanied by pretensions to gentility, bravery, wisdom, etc., 
where every action of the gull merely serves to emphasize his crude- 
ness, cowardice, or stupidity. The gulls are zanies for the humour 
types, as Jonson indicates in Cynthia's Revels^ 

^Mercury says of the gull Asotus in relation to Amorphus, "The other 
gallant is his Zany, and doth most of these tricks after him ; sweats to 
imitate him in everything to a hair" (II, 1 ) . See algo Ev. M. out, 



112 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

Before attempting a comparison of Jonson's gulls with those of 
the epigrams quoted, it will be necessary to take up the relation of 
Every Man in to Chapman's An Humorous Day's Mirth (1597), 
where we have in Labesha a companion stucl_y of the gull. Chap- 
man's play probably suggested as much for Every Man in as did any- 
thing else in tlie drama. First of all, it seems to be the earliest play 
extant in which a definite program of humours is developed. Chap- 
man uses the word humour for his types more consistently in An 
Humorous Day's Mirth than Jonson does in The Case is Altered 
of about the same date or in Every Man in of later date, to indicate 
the fundamental folly of the individual. In fact, the full influence 
of Chapman's comedy is not felt till Every Man out. But in both 
Every Man in and An Humorous Day's Mirth, it is clear that the 
characters are studied from the point of view of humours. The 
one typical humour that appears in both of the plays is jealousy, a 
form of mental unbalance which, among the prose writers who 
develop the use of the word, has the name humour applied to it 
oftener than does any other character inclination. Labervele of 
Chapman's play represents jealousy in a husband, corresponding 
to Kitely of Every Man in but not very similar. In addition Chap- 
man deals with the jealous wife in the character of the Countess 
Moren.^ A further link between the two plays is found in the 
treatment of the gull, as I have just indicated. An Humorous 
Day's Mirth first introduces the gull into comedy, and, while Chap- 
man does not stress the type so consistently as Jonson does, the 
characterization is similar. Indeed, Jonson's advances over Davies 
are practically all anticipated by Chapman. One of the few char- 
acter sketches in An Humorous Day's Mirth describes "a very fine 
gull" (p. 36),- and suggests pretty clearly Fungoso of Every Man 
out, who along with Sogliardo represents Jonson's continued inter- 

IV, 1, where Brisk as an imitator of courtly types is compared to a zany. 
Florio in A Worlde of Wordes, 1598, defines the word Zane as "a gull or 
noddie," and also as any "vice, clowne, foole," etc. 

^At the end of both plays, the characters, through the manipulation 
of the intriguers, are made to meet at a set place, and adjustments fol- 
low the comic embarrassment. For the type of conclusion in Jonson's 
play. Look About You, though probably not earlier than Every Man in, 
furnishes another parallel. 

-The references to Chapman's works are by page to the volume of plays, 
edited by R. H. Shepherd, in the Chatto and Windus issue of The Works 
of Chapman. 



Every Man in his Humour 113 

est in the country gnll. Stephen, the country gull of Every Man 
in, seems especially to have been modeled on Chapman's Labesha, 
with some touches of Blanuel, another type of gull in An Humorous 
Day's Mirth. Mathew, Jonson's town gull, also shows the same 
characteristics, but he is more complex, approaching the popularly 
satirized gallant — who really lays the foundation for many of the 
gulls but is to be kept distinct. A good test of the kinship between 
Stephen and Labesha is furnished by Davies' definition of a gull. 
The folly, the cowardice, the ''unperfect speech" filled up with 
oaths, the melancholy, and other characteristics mentioned by 
Davies appear in both Stephen and Labesha, and to an extent in 
Mathew and Blanuel also. 

Of course the chief stress in every delineation of the gull is on 
his "little wit." The foolish talk of Labesha and Stephen estab- 
lishes the character of each at his very first appearance, and the 
attitude of Martia and the Elder Knowell to them in the early 
scenes merely emphasizes the impression. One phase of the gull's 
weak wit comes out in his taking his opinions and often his words 
from others. It is the nature of the gull to be a copy. Stephen's 
speech is molded out of the words or suggestions of others, and 
often it amounts to a mere echo. 

Step\}ien~\. Cousin, how do you like this gentleman's verses? 
E. KnowleW]. O, admirable! the best that ever I heard, coz. 
Step. Body o' Caesar, they are admirable! The best that I ever 
heard, as I am a soldier! (TV, 1). 

Blanuel in An Humorous Doaj's Mirth is called the "complete ape" 
in compliment. To every complimentary salutation of Lemot, 
Blanuel replies as an exact echo, and has no words of his own to 
offer. Mathew assents to Stephen's claim that the latter's sword 
is a Toledo, and then agrees immediately with Bobadill's contempt- 
uous verdict that it is a "poor provant rapier" (III, 1). He also 
accepts a Latin phrase, incipere dulce, quoting it without knowledge 
of its double meaning (IV, 1), and pretends to understand the 
Latin spoken by Wellbred (III, 1). Labesha attempts to quote 
Latin and to soliloquize philosophically in the manner of Dowsecer. 
He is nonplussed by Lemot's objection to his saying, "No matter 
for me," and accepts the statement that it is "the heinousest word 
in the world" (p. 36). Stephen is convinced that he may swear 
by his soldiership (III, 2, p. 35), and thus his use of a common- 



114 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

place phrase is determined by the approval or disapproval of others. 
So the gulls are played upon by thoss from whom they would take 
their cue. 

An exaggerated idea of his own importance and powers is another 
phase of the gall's simple-mindedness. According to Davies, 

He thinks himself most lit 
To be of counsell with a king for wit. 

Labesha's egoism is pervasive, and comes out in the perfect confi- 
dence that he feels in the worth of his foolish talk. Mathew "doth 
think himself poet-major of the town" (I, 1), and scorns Down- 
right as a clown lacking in good manners and speech (I, 4). 
Stephen, also, has a good opinion of himself. "By gads-lid I scorn 
it," he tells Knowell, "I, so I do, to be a consort for every hum- 
drum . . . 'Slid, a gentleman mun show himself like a gen- 
tleman. Unclej I pray you to be not angry; I know what I have 
to do, I trow, I am no novice" (I, 1). A part of the gull's egoism 
is his love of flattery. Both Labesha and Stephen are readily 
played upon by flattery. Labesha is cajoled by praise of his eye, 
his nose, his general perfection of feature (p. 29) ; and Brainworm 
gulls Stephen with ironical praise of his leg (I, 2). Mathew, 
too, is flattered by Bobadill, who tells him that a company of gal- 
lants drank to him the night before (I, 4). 

The gull's "unperfect speech" filled up with oaths is exemplified 
in both Labesha and Stephen. Labesha's first speech begins with 
"I protest" (p. 24), and this is one of the oaths of Stephen as well 
as of Bobadill and Mathew — naturally, however, for it seems to 
have been affected by all gallants. '"Forsooth" Labesha uses repeat- 
edly in the same scene. The word forsooth is satirized by Jonson 
in Poetaster (IV, 1), Penates, and The Masque of Christmas as a 
citizen's oath, and is especially appropriate for the gull of clownish 
type (cf. also / Henry IV, III, 1). Except for the first scene in 
which he appears, however, oaths are not conspicuous in the por- 
trayal of Labesha. Stephen's first oaths, also, are crude — "by 
gads-lid," "by my fackings," etc. — until he meets Bobadill and 
learns to swear like a gallant. Henceforth the greater part of his 
speech is larded with the oaths which ravish him in the mouth of 
Bobadill. Plis use of them is part of the portrayal of his mimicry, 



Every Man in liis Humour 115 

and Jonson has heightened the absurdity of the situation by mak- 
ing Steplien forget them at the crucial moment. 

Cowardice covered by swaggering and boasts of valor is another 
characteristic stressed by Davies, Chapman, and Jonson, and marks 
the gull as an understudy to the braggart soldier. Mathew is a 
coward. He protests that he will speak to Bobadill of his mean 
lodging, but fawns and flatters when he meets his hero face to 
face ; he laughs at Downright's threats, pretends to be eager to meet 
him, and then runs away when Downright attacks two at once. 
Stephen's boasting and cowardice are treated more ludicrously. In 
the opening scenes, he plays the swaggerer, attempts to pick a quar- 
rel with a servingman, pretends to be anxious to waylay him, man- 
ages to miss him, declares his desire to follow him, and, when a 
means of overtaking him is suggested, offers a trivial excuse for 
refusing. In many other details Stephen is revealed as a boaster 
who backs down at the first suggestion that his boast is called. 

StepVien}. Oh, now I see who he laughed at: he laughed at somebody 
in that letter. By this good light, an he had laughed at me — 

E[dward~\ Knoio[ell]. How now, Cousin Stephen, melancholy? 

Step. Yes, a little: I thought you had laughed at me, cousin. 

E. Know. Why, what an I had, coz? what would you have done? 

Step. By this light, I would have told mine uncle. 

E. Know. Nay, if you would have told your uncle, I did laugh at 
you, coz. 

Step. Did you, indeed? 

E. Know. Yes, indeed. 

Step. Why then — 

E. Know. What then? 

Step. I am satisfied; it is sufficient (I, 2). 

In III, 1, when the disguised Brainworm enters while Stephen is 
still breathing out threatenings against him for selling him the 
faked Toledo, the dialogue is similar. 

Steplhen]. Oh— od's lid! By your leave, do you know me, sir? 

Brai[nicorm'\. Ay, sir, I know you by sight. 

Step. You sold me a rapier, did you not? 

Brai. Yes, marry did I, sir. 

Step. You said it was a Toledo, ha? 

Brai. True, I did so. 

Step. But it is none. 

Brai. No, sir, I confess it: it is none. 



116 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

Step. Do you confess it? Gentlemen, bear witness, he lias confest it: — 
Od's will, an you had not confest it — ^ 

In his role of dragon guarding Martia, Labesha shows the same 
quality of courage when he is mocked by those who converse with 
her in defiance of him. 

Mo[ren]. Well, sirrah, get you hence, or by my troth I'll have thee 
taken out in a blanket, tossed from forth our hearing. 

[La]be[sha~\. In a blanket? what, do you make a puppy of me? By 
skies and stones, I will go and tell your lady (p. 27 ) ." 

[La]be[sha]. . . . Go to, mistress Martia, . . . are you not 
ashamed to stand talking alone with such a one as he? 

Le[mot~\. How, sir? with such a one as I, sir? 

Be. Yea, sir, with such a one as you, sir. 

Le. Why, what am I ? 

Be. What are you, sir? why, I know you well enough. 

Le. Sirrah, tell me what you know me for, or else by heaven, I'll make 
thee better thou hadst never known how to speak. 

Be. Why, sir, if you will needs know, I know you for an honourable 
gentleman and the king's minion, and were it not to you, there's ne'er a 
gentleman in Paris should have had her out of my hands (pp. 28, 29). 

The melancholy of the gull that is mentioned in the second epi- 
gram quoted from Davies characterizes the gulls of both Chapman 
and Jonson. Lemot describes Blanuel as retiring, after his first 
salutations are over, "to a chimney, or a wall, standing folding his 
arms," and affecting silence (p. 23). Labesha, also, has his melan- 
choly. On account of Martia's treatment of him, he grows "mar- 
vellous malcontent,*' and in imitation of Dowsecer, quotes Latin 
and attempts to utter profound soliloquies. By a bait of cream he 
is soon tempted out of his pose, and "his melancholy is well eased" 
(pp. 39, 40). So Stephen, when his cousin introduces him into 

^This last example is suggestive of an epigram of Sir Thomas More as 
given in Kendall's Floivers of Epigrams, pp. 176, 177. It is called "A 
lest of a lackbragger." A soldier goes out to avenge himself on a clown. 

Shaking his sword the souldier sayd. 

You slaue you vsde my wife: 
I did so said the clowne, what then? 

I loue her as my life. 
O doe you then confesse said he? 

(by all the gods I swere) 
If thou hadst not confest the fact, 

it should haue cost thee dere. 

^Later he threatens to tell Martia's father if she mocks him. 



Every Man in his Humour 117 

the group of gallants and gulls, stands aside in silence, until Well- 
bred asks, "But what strange piece of silence is this, the sign of 
the dumb man?" Stephen explains himself by saying, ''I am 
somewhat melancholy, but you shall command me, sir, in what- 
soever is incident to a gentleman." Mathew's interest is aroused 
at once. 

Blat. But are you, indeed, sir, so given to it? 

Step. Ay, truly, sir, I am mightily given to melancholy. 

Mat. Oh, it's your only fine humour, sir; your true melancholy breeds 
your perfect fine wit, sir.'^ I am melancholy myself, divers times, sir, 
etc. (Ill, 1). 

The love-making of his gulls and gallants Jonson touches only 
lightly in Every Man in, whereas it is a notable point with Davies 
and Chapman. Except for Stephen's boast of the jet ring with 
its posy that Mistress Mary sent him (II, 2), the treatment of the 
gull as a wooer is omitted in Stephen. But Mathew is the lover 
studying how he shall approach his mistress, and writing, or rather 
stealing, poems in her honor. In the end he is discarded for 
Knowell. So Labesha, on account of his money, is betrothed to 
Martia by her father, but loses her to Dowsecer in spite of his assi- 
duity as a lover.^ The gull in this is again the understudy of the 
English braggart. Balph Bolster Bolster, Crackstone of Trvo Ital- 
ian Gentlemen , and Basilisco of Soliman and Perseda all fail 
in love. Further, the "good handsome cloaths" of the gull are not 
conspicuous in An Humorous Day's Mirth or Every Man in. Both 
Stephen and Labesha have some wealth — Labesha enough to make 
him the suitor favored by Martia's father (p. 23) — but there is no 
lavishness about either. Eather, a touch of parsimony belongs to 
them. It is not until Every Man out that the finery of the gulls is 
stressed. 

Mathew shows the folly, the weakness, the egoism, the love of 
flattery, the melancholy, and the cowardice of the ordinary gull, 
but he also approaches closely the posing gallant of the day. In 
fact, the pretentious and make-believe man of fashion became the 
best known type of gull from the time of Mathew and Brisk. 

^Whalley traces this idea to Aristotle. See his note to the passage. 

^There are traces in Labesha of the foolish but wealthy heir desired 
for his money, as in Mother Bomhie, Wily Beguiled, and numerous other 
plays. 



118 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

Davies' conception of a gull is that of a gallant. Jonson distin- 
guishes Stephen and MatheAV as the country and the town gull. 
The country gull often comes of good family and has wealth back 
of him; his follies arise partly from crudeness. The town gull, 
however, with no position socially and apparently no money, — 
Mathew's father is a "wor.shipful fishmonger," and on the day cov- 
ered by the play Mathew starts with two shillings in his pocket, — 
has still caught some of the veneer of the fashionable without the 
indi^ddual force that marks a natural man. Jonson keeps the two 
types apart also in Every Man out. Brisk belongs to the town and 
Sogliardo and Fungoso to the country. Mathew's strongest point 
of individuality as a gull lies in his complimenting his mistress 
through shallow and stolen verses. Nashe in describing the nature 
of an upstart in Pierce Penilesse (Worls, ed. McKerrow, Vol. I, 
pp. 168, 169), among many details that suggest various characters 
of Jonson, gives one detail that is interesting for this phase of 
Mathew : ''All malcontent sits the greasie son of a Cloathier. 
. . . Sometimes (because Loue commonly weares the liuerey 
of Wit) hee will be an Inamorato Poeta, & sonnet a whole quire 
of paper in praise of Lady Sivin-snout, his yeolow fac'd Mistres." 
So Mathew, the son of a fishmonger, says, '-'I am melancholy myself 
divers times, sir, and then do I . . . overflow you half a score, 
or a dozen of sonnets at a sitting" (III, 1). Satire on the shallow 
vein, the plagiarism, and the mawkish sentimentality of the gallant's 
verse is, of course, exceedingly common at the end of the century. 
The affectation of writing verse as a part of the convention of 
courtly love is perhaps the point of such attacks rather than the 
banality of the verse. Wooing and witless poetry are emphasized 
in Gullio of The Return from Parnassus, Part I, more than in the 
gull Mathew. Jonson himself gives fuller attention to these follies 
in his satire in Cynthia's Bevels on the evils of courtiers. 

The exact analysis of character and the tabulation of qualities 
were characteristic of medieval literature, with its numbered vices 
and virtues, its comparison of the traits of animals with those of 
men, and so on. The mode continued in the Eenaissance. Spen- 
ser's Faerie Queens exemplifies the classification of qualities, and 
Jonson's masques again and again show the same method of literary 
treatment. Criticism was academic, and called for fixed standards, 
forms, and modes. The stress on decorum in character emphasized 



Every Man in This Humour 119 

t.ypes rather than individuals. Ehetorical studies took the form of 
elaborate classifications. This interest in analysis and classifica- 
tion may well account for the study of types in Elizabethan liter- 
ature and for the recurrence of certain details in such types as the 
gull, the cobbler, the clown. The tendency would be all the more 
natural in a man like Jonson, trained in the school of classicism, 
and especially versed in satire, where characters are built up from 
a certain number of external follies. The restriction of these types 
to a comparatively small number; the constant repetition of even 
sucli specific types as the revenger, the malcontent, the braggart 
soldier, and the patient wife ; and the fact that many of these types 
were introduced from foreign literature would all indicate not 
direct observation of life but literary convention. Accordingly, 
even though there may be only a similarity in generalized qualities 
and little resemblance in detail, one feels justified in saying that 
Jonson took over the groundwork for his gulls from Davies and 
Chapman and drew on life merely for touches here and there that 
make the types more concrete. In all ages writers had scored sep- 
arately all the follies that unite in the gull, and doubtless all had 
existed in single individuals before characters like Mathew were 
portrayed : but such a grouping or such a mode of approach had 
not been followed. When the gull had once been fixed as a type, 
men saw the same character much more frequently. But it was to 
literature that they owed the insight, and Jonson could still go to 
Erasmus, and Dekker to "Grobianus" for phases of the treatment 
of the gull. So there followed a succession of gulls in the satire 
on the follies of the time. Jonson dealt with gulls in Every Man 
in, Every Man out, and Cynthia's Revels, varying the types only in 
details. As late as The Silent Woman he made elaborate studies 
of the type in Daw and La-Foole, with their pretensions to learn- 
ing, to the favor of women, and to courage, and with their disgrace 
in wooing and in fighting. Other writers followed the type as 
assiduously. In Gullio of The Return from Parnassus, Part I, 
(m. 1599) many details of Jonson's gulls are repeated, but 
wooing, writing of verse, and braggadocio are especially stressed. 
Emulo of Patient GrisseU (1599) seems close akin to Brisk 
in his boasting and cowardice, his notable battle, etc., and to 
Mathew in his misfortunes in love and his sonnets in honor of 
his mistress, though as in Gullio the last details show the closer 



120 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

approach of the gull to the courtier. The Gullinge Sonnets of 
Davies, "A doozen of Guiles" at the end of Pasquils Jests, and The 
Guls Horne-bool-e furnish examples of the word as used in titles. 

This view of Jonson's gulls gives a point of departure for a 
digression on the subject of the personal satire in Jonson's attacks. 
In general it seems to me that the importance of his personal hos- 
tilities in determining his literary treatment has been greatly over- 
stressed. Preconceptions in regard to Jonson's satire on Marston, 
for example, have kept many close students of both writers from 
emphasizing sufficiently, I think, the kinship of their early work 
before Marston's excesses spoiled the relation. It seems entirely 
in keeping with what we know of the man Jonson to suppose that he 
would enjoy filling in a type character with details fitting some in- 
dividual whom he wished to ridicule. That he undoubtedly did, but 
I doubt whether in any case he allowed personal satire to interfere 
with the moral purpose of his comedies, — ^the attack on typical follies 
as a means of upholding fundamental social laws. Even the char- 
acters who are spokesmen for Jonson embody principles. Indeed, 
with respect to various characters of Jonson who have been identi- 
fied with this or that prominent London contemporary, the objec- 
tion can be raised that they are so evidently types and so closely 
approach abstractions as to give one little ground, outside of con- 
temporary references, on which to build a surmise as to identity. 

Professor Penniman, for instance, in the introduction to his 
forthcomino- edition of Poetaster and Satiromastix remarks: 
"While the affected courtier, the country gull, and the town gull 
were undoubtedly types, the particular example of them found in 
the characters of Gullio and Matheo as we have seen, and in Fas- 
tidious Brisk in Every Man out, Hedon in Cynthia's Revels, and 
Emulo in Patient Grissell, as we shall see, were also Daniel." But 
the identification of these characters with Daniel must rest upon 
the applicability of minor points in the satire, for every general 
point in their characterization is conventional. Professor Penni- 
man of course recognizes the type underlying these figures, but he 
seems to me to underestimate their conventionality. Though Jon- 
son undoubtedlv satirizes Daniel frequently, the satire is inciden- 
tal, I believe, as in the lines which Mathew plagiarizes, or rather 
parodies, from his works. It must be admitted that, if any man 
in public life sat for the portrait of these gulls and gallants, it 



Every Man in his Humour 121 

would natiirall}' be Daniel. He was connected with the court, 
wrote court poetry, and seemingly affected courtly or Italianate 
manners ; he was a conspicuous figure, the center of intense admira- 
tion and even more intense hostility ; and finally, on account of his 
being so much in the limelight, certain adverse criticisms on his 
work became conventionalized, and this itself suggests the pos- 
sibility that his personality m.ay have been conventionally satirized. 
These are the strongest grounds, however, for seeing Daniel in 
these early figures, and, tempting as the identification is, it seems 
to me unsafe to make it. I myself have attempted to follow out 
only the conventional lines of treatment in these plays of Jonson, 
and so have avoided any effort to get at what is personal. It is 
not out of keeping with my purpose, however, to point out that, 
where Jonson attacks Daniel openly in his incidental satire, the 
point of attack is conventional. The satire in The Silent Woman, 
II, 1, on those who compare Daniel with Spenser seems to be by 
way of reply to a claim of Daniel's admirers. Davison in A Poeti- 
cal Rapsody says of Daniel that his "Muse hath surpassed Spenser" 
(Cambridge Hisiory of English Literature, Vol. IV, p. 160). 
Daniel's "silent rhetoric" and "dumb eloquence" are ridiculed both 
in Every Man out, III, 1, and in The Staple of Neivs, III, 1. The 
same bit of satire is found in Davies' Epigram 45, In Dacum, sup- 
posedly Daniel.^ The most notable point in the direct attack on 
Daniel lies in the verdict that he was after all not a poet. Jonson, 
apparently in a mood of intended fairness, told Drummond, "Samuel 
Daniel was a good honest man, had no children: but no poet." 
The same point is made in The Forest, where Jonson, in what is 
clearly a reference to Daniel, speaks of a rival poet as a "better 
verser," or "Poet, in the court-account" ("Epistle to Elizabeth, 
Countess of Eutland," Worhs, Vol. Ill, p. 272). Davies in another 
epigram addressed In Dacum, No. 30, satirizes the prosiness of 
Dacus, who is numbered among the poets but is none. Drayton in 
Of Poets and Poesy later says that Daniel's "maner better fitted 
prose." All this, however, seems to me merely an application to 
Daniel of a commonplace distinction of Eenaissance criticism — that 
between the true and the false poet. Ehymer and verser are fre- 

^But see Grosart's edition of Davies, Vol. 1, pp. cxxi f.. for the claim 
that Dacus is not Daniel and even that "silent eloquence" is conventional. 
Cf. also Small, Stage-Quarrel, pp. 192 ff. 



122 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

quently applied to the uninspired poet. Elyot in The Governour 
(Vol. I, p. 1-30 of Croft's edition) says: "Semblably they that 
make verses, expressynge therby none other lernynge but the craft 
of versifyeng, be nat of auncient writers named poetes, but onely 
called vorsifyers." In connection with this passage Croft refers the 
idea back to Quintilian and to ^'Eneas Sylvius, and cites Puttenham. 
According to Drumraond, Jonson "thought not Bartas a Poet, but 
a Verser." There is a passage, also, in Cynthia's Revels (II. 1) in 
which Mercury says of Hedon, who is the Italianate courtier and 
consecjuently a sonneteer, "Himself is a rhymer, and that's thought 
better than a poet." (See also Timber , ed. Schelling, p. 76). The 
expression has been used to connect Hedon with Daniel, but to my 
mind it is hardly necessary to read into it more than the general 
Renaissance distinction between poets true and false. Even where 
Daniel is unquestionably attacked, however, the satire seems to be 
expressive not so much of personal hostility to Daniel as of the 
critical conventions of the school to which Jonson belongs. 

In the Quarto of Every Man in, Prospero, or Wellbred, in writ- 
ing of Mathew and Bobadill,^ says, "7 can shew thee two of the most 
perfect, rare, <f- absolute true Gulls, that euer thou saw'st" 
(11. 166 f.). In the revised form, however, this has been changed. 
Perhaps Jonson consciously refrained from classifying Bobadill 
with the gulls on account of his closer approach to the miles glori- 
osus type than the ordinary gull or false gallant shows. But the 
margin between Bobadill and the gull is a narrow one. On the 
one hand, the gulls, especially as they approach a station of some 
dignity, have taken over many traits of the braggart; they 
are boasters, swaggerers, cowards, and unsuccessful lovers. On the 
other hand, Bobadill verges upon the gull in combining with his 
braggadocio a gallantry which is tinsel and which he is put to his 
wits' end to maintain. Still Bobadill is the braggart soldier, a 
t3''pe but not a counterfeit or imitation as are the gulls ; rather he 
has his independence and his power of taking the initiative. It is 
only when he has been beaten by Downright that he becomes a 
weak second to ]\Tathew in the pursuit of vengeance. 

As a bragging soldier Bobadill of course has a number of prede- 

^For suggestions as to the origin of the name cf. 4 N. and Q., Vol. VII, 
p. 208, and Englische Studien, Vol. 36, pp. 331. 332. Cf. also the British 
Museum catalogue for a list of authors who bore the name. 



Every Man in his Humour 133 

cessors in the English drama and in general literature. Graf in 
Der Miles Gloriosus has studied the type in the English drama, 
stressing naturall}^ the hoastfulness of the soldier. But for Boba- 
dill I am concerned chiefly with the development of a more specific 
and complex character, one with marks of English gallantry. Per- 
haps the best evidence of the conventionality of this type with its 
English turn may be found in the braggarts of The Tivo Italian 
Gentlemen and Soliman and Perseda, plays showing forms of the 
miles gloriosus as crude as Pyrgopolinices, and yet furnishing a 
better preparation for Bobadill, absvird as they are, than do the 
Latin prototypes. 

In Crackstone of The Tivo Italian Gentlemen'^ there are a few 
suggestions of Bobadill. Crackstone "braues it with the best, in 
euery company" (1. 22; cf. 1. 63 also),- as Bobadill pretends to 
gallantry and choice of friends. He affects elegant language, but 
his speech is really bombastic and perverted, whereas Bobadill's 
language is correct and never overdone, but merely the stilted and 
affected speech of gallants. Both use Italian terms, and this is 
perhaps significant of the new elegance of the times. Comment is 
made on Crackstone's language (1. 1377) as on Bobadill's. Of 
course each braggart tells of the marvelous deeds he has accom- 
plished, of the enemies he has slain, and each seemingly longs to 
fight his adversary, makes a show of being formidable, and cringes 
at the mere approach of danger. When Crackstone is overthrown 
ingloriously after his great pretense of bravery, he accepts the sit- 
uation and explains it by saying (1. 1330), 

T'is the Fortune of warre, hicke runnes not euer to one side. 

vSo Bobadill explains his cowardice by saying that he was "fasci- 
nated," bewitched (IV, 7). After Crackstone's overthrow Pedante 
asks (11. 13081), 

^Frangipetra, the soldier of Fraunce's Victoria, — which has for its 
source the same Italian play, II Fedele of Pasqualigo, from which the 
author of Two Ital. Gent, derived his plot, — is slightly sketched, and the 
stress is on the pedant. Probably the braggart was as lightly touched 
in the original play as in Fraunce's. Cf. Mod. Lang. Review, Vol. Ill, 
pp. 177-181. The English dramatist added to the character and trans- 
ferred to the braggart the whole episode of the pedant's love affair, so 
that the final result is probably an English study of the boastful soldier. 

^The references are by line to Fliigge's edition of the play in Archiv 
fiir das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen, Vol. 123, pp. 45 ff. 



124 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

Is this my lusty kill Cow, that will eate vp so many men at a bit, 
And when he deales with a shadows will not stand to it? 

In Every Man in (V, 1), when Bobadill enters his complaint that 
Downright has beaten him, Justice Clement exclaims, "0, Clod's 
precious! is this the soldier?" The interesting thing about this 
treatment of Crackstone is that so earh^ in the history of the drama 
an English dramatist, either Chapman or Munday, has begun to 
develop the peculiar characteristics of the braggadocio gallant. 

In the same way Basilisco of Soliman and Perseda, though he is 
portrayed in the spirit of nonsensical bombast and burlesque, as 
was the Latin soldier, shows some advances toward the English 
combined gallant and l^raggart.^ His affected language and his 
oaths are only dimly suggestive of Bobadill.^ More interesting is 
Basilisco's pretended gallantry, in which some of the traits of 
Bobadill are foreshadowed. Piston in giving a character sketch 
of Basilisco says, "He goes many times supperles to bed, and yet 
he takes Phisick to make liim leane. Last night he was bidden to 
a gentlewomans to supper," etc. (I, 3, 11. 214 ff.). Bobadill at his 
first appearance tells of having been invited to dine with gallants 
the night before ; but that morning, having no money, he conde- 
scends to let Mathew" pay for his breakfast and is content to take 
the most frugal fare (I, 4). Both Basilisco and Bobadill show the 
refinement of braggardism that expresses itself not in boasts of 
enemies slain but in pretence to great skill in the use of arms. In 
I, 3, Basilisco comments on the tourney: "Their Launces were 
coucht too hie, and their steeds ill borne" (1. 183) ; and a little later, 

Prettie, prettie, but not famous; 

Well for a learner, but not for a warriour. 

The same kind of expert criticism is called forth in the fencing 
lesson which Bobadill gives Mathew (I, 4). "A well experienced 
hand would pass upon you at pleasure," he tells Mathew; and 
later, "Why, you do not manage your weapon with any facility or 

^Miss Winifred Smith, in Modern Philology, Vol. V, p. 562. ti'aces to Ital- 
ian comedy the name Basilisco and also the new trend towards inflated 
diction in the treatment of the type. 

''Basilisco swears "by the marble face of the Welkin" (I, 3. 1. 193 in 
Boas's edition) and Bobadill "by this welkin" (IV. 5). Naturally both 
swear upon their honor. Compare Two Ital. Gent., 11. 10, 11, for Crack- 
stone's oaths. 



Every Man in his Humour 135 

grace to invite me. I have no spirit to play with you," etc. This 
comes out more strongly in IV, 5, where Bobadill explains on the 
ground of jealousy the ill will borne him by professional fencing 
masters, and is led on by Knowell to his famous boast of how he 
with nineteen others chosen by an instinct peculiar to him would 
be a sufficient standing army for the AAdiole realm. The cruder 
forms of boasting characterize Basilisco also. When he is warned 
that the enemy whom he is seeking has '"planted a double cannon 
in the doore," Basilisco replies (IT, 2, 11. 58 fP.) : 

Thinkes he bare cannon shot can keepe me back? 

Why, wherfore serues my targe of proof e but for the bullet? 

That once put by, I roughly come vpon him. 

So Bobadill instructs Mathew (I, 4), "Should your adversary con- 
front you with a pistol, 'twere nothing, by this hand ! you should, 
by the same rule, control his bullet, in a line," etc. Later, in his 
account of being the first man to enter a breach, he uses the cannon 
(III, 1) : "They had planted me three demi-culverins just in the 
mouth of the breach ; . . . their master-gunner . . . con- 
fronts me with his linstock, ready to give fire; I . . . dis- 
charged my petronel in his bosom, and . . . put 'em pell-mell 
to the sword." Finally there are some similar touches when the 
two braggarts begin to trim sail. Basilisco says of the page Piston 
(II, 2, 11. 88 ff.) : 

Doubtlesse he is a very tall fellow; 

And yet it were a disgrace to all my chiualrie 

To combate one so base: 

He send some Crane to combate with the Pigmew; 

Not that I feare, but that I scorne to fight. 

When Knowell ironically expresses fear for Downright, Bobadill 
answers, "If he were here now, by this welkin, I would not draw 
my weapon on him . . . but I will bastinado him, by the bright sun, 
wherever I meet him" (IV, 5). A few moments later, when Down- 
right descends upon him and orders him to draw his weapon, Boba- 
dill protests, "Tall man, I never thought on it till now — Body of 
me, I had a warrant of the peace served on me, even now as I came 
along," etc., and Downright immediately disarms and beats him. 

Falstaff is too strongly individualized to contribute much to the 
study of a type. Graf, however, in Der Miles Gloriosus (pp. 45, 



136 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

46) has pointed out a niTiiiber of minor parallels between him and 
Bobadill. Besides these, Falstaif's "I will imitate the honourable 
Eoman in brevity" (// Henry IV, II, 2) and "I will not use many 
words with you" (III, 2) may be worth recalling in connection with 
Bobadill's "I love few words" (III, 1). This affectation of brevity 
in speech probably arises from the accepted notion that a man of 
action is little given to words. ^ 

Bragadino of The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, a brief sketch, 
shows the braggart soldier in the role of a Spanish gallant. Hu- 
mour is one of his favorite words, used not as Pistol uses it but as 
an Elizabethan gallant would use it. His affected language is as 
far as Bobadill's from the mere clownish travesty of fine talking 
that we find in the ordinary braggart soldier. Braggart and cow- 
ard though he is, there is in Bragadino's actions as in Bobadill's 
an approach to dignity that is new, and indeed he several times 
expresses a dislike of doing what is "ridiculous." Bragadino also 
declares, "I love few words" (p. 6). He attempts to parley with 
the fiery Count Hermes as Bobadill does with Downright, but will 
not fight. "I do not like this humour in tliee in pistoling men in 
this sort," he tells the count ; "it is a most dangerous and stigmat- 
ical humour: . . . otherwise I do hold thee for the most tall, 
resolute, and accomplished gentleman on the face of the earth" 
(p 7).^ In this brief encounter it also comes out that Bragadino, 
like Bobadill, understands the virtues of a friendly jDipe of tobacco. 

A few minor points in the characterization of Bobadill as a gal- 
lant are interesting. In Epigram 22 Davies, after describing a 
gallant who strives for the newest fashions and fads, concludes. 

Yet this new f angled youth, made for these times, 
Doth aboue all praise old George Gascoine's rimes? 

So Bobadill and Mathew — in the very scene (I, 4) in which Bob- 
adill says of his boot, "It's the fashion gentlemen now use" — are 
made ridiculous by their praise of the old-fashioned Spanish Trag- 
edy. The cavaliers who admire Harvey's works are also satirized 
by Nashe in a passage from Haiie with, you to Saffron-iunlden that 

^In // Henry IV (III, 2) Bardolph and Shallow play at length with the 
word accommodate. This word is used by Bobadill, and Jonson in Timber 
(p. 71, ed. Schelling) mentions it as one of "the perfumed terms of the 
time." 

^Bobadill speaks of himself in contrast with Downright as being "a ma-n 
in no sort given to this filthy humour of quarrelling" (V, 1). 



Every Man in his Humour 187 

is worth quoting. Importimo sa3's of Harvey {Worlds, Vol. Ill, 
p. 41): 

His stile is not easie to be matcht, beeing commended by diuers (of 
good iudgement) | for the best that ere they read. 

And Piers replies : 

Amongst the which number is a red bearded thrid-bare Caualier, who 
(in my hearing) at an ordinarie, as he sat fumbling the dice after 
supper, fell into these tearmes (no talke before leading him into it) : 
There is such a Booke of Harueys ... as I am a Souldiour and a 
Gentleman, I protest, I neuer met with the like contriued pile of pure 
English.^ 0, it is deuine and most admirable, & so farre beyond all that 
euer he publislied heretofore, as day-light beyond candle-light," etc. 

In like manner Bobadill and Mathew praise The Spanish Tragedy, 
a subject introduced as inconsequentially as were Harvey's works 
by the "thrid-bare Caualier" : 

Bob. Well penned! I would fain see all the poets of these times pen 
such another play as that was. . . . 

Mat. Indeed here are a number of fine speeches in this book. . . . 
Is't not excellent? Is't not simply the best that ever you heard, captain?^ 

One conspicuous mark of the gallant is not wanting in Bobadill — 
he is a devotee of tobacco. In III, 2, we have a notable speech 
from him on the subject of its miraculous powers. Arber in his 
edition of King James's Conntcrhlaste to Tobacco gives a number 
of quotations from various works showing the miracles attributed 
to tobacco.^ One of the works cited, Frampton's Joyfull newes 
(1577), translated from French and Spanish, contains accounts of 
the power of tobacco to heal wounds, ulcers, scrofula, etc. (Arber, 

'Compare Bobadill's stricture on Downright immediately after the dis- 
cussion of The Spanish Tragedy (I, 4) : "I protest to you, as I am a 
gentleman and a soldier, I ne'er changed words with his like. . . . He 
has not so much as a good phrase in his belly." 

-Such extravagant and pointless expressions of praise seem to charac- 
terize the "little wits" of the time. Stephen, echoing Knowell's ironic 
judgment, seriously declares of Mathew's verses, "They are admirable! 
The best that I ever heard, as I am a soldier" (IV, 1). Labervele in An 
Humorous Day's Mirth pronounces some of his own verses "wonderful 
rare and witty, nay divine!" and "the best that e'er I heard," etc. (p. 
25). Labesha says of his prospective father-in-law's speech, "I pro- 
test, sir, you speak the best that ever I heard" (p. 24). 

^Cf. Nashe's reference in Lenten Rtuffe to the custom of writing about 
the miracles of tobacco. Works, Vol. Ill, p. 177. 



128 



English Elements %n Jonson's Early Comedy 



pp. 81-84). The passage which Arber quotes from Harlot's Brief e 
and true report of the new found land of Virginia (1588) also 
attributes to tobacco the power to cure by purging "superfluous 
fleame and other grosse humors." For Bobadill's speech the most 
interesting detail cited by Arber (p. 85) is from Hakluyt: "The 
Floridians when they trauell haue a kinde of herbe dryed, which 
with a cane, and an earthen cup in the end, with fire and the dried 
herbs put together, do sucke thorow the cane the smoke thereof, 
which smoke satisfieth their hunger, and therewith they live foure 
or fine dayes without meat or drinke, and this all the Frenchmen 
vsed for this purpose." Compare with this what Bobadill says of 
the power of tobacco to sustain life: "I have been in the Indies, 
where this herb grows, where neither myself, nor a dozen gentlemen 
more of my knowledge, have received the taste of any other nutri- 
ment in the world, for the space of one and twenty weeks, but the 
fume of this simple only." 

For the rest of Bobadill's speech, the closest parallel that I have 
noted is in Epigram 36 of Davies, "Of Tobacco." 



Jonson 

Therefore, it cannot be, but 'tis 
most divine. Further, take it in 
the nature, in the true kind: so, it 
makes an antidote, that had you 
taken the most deadly poisonous 
plant in all Italy, it should expel it, 
and clarify you, with as much ease 
as I speak. And for your green 
wound, — your Balsamum and your 
St. John's wort are all mere guUer- 
ies and trash to it. . . . I could 
say what I know of the virtue of it, 
for the expulsion of rheums, raw 
humours, crudities, obstructions, 
with a thousand of this kind ; but 
I profess myself no quacksalver. 
Only thus much; by Hercules I do 
hold it, and will affirm it before any 
prince in Europe, to be the most 
Bovereign and precious weed that 
ever the earth tendered to the use 
of man. 



Davies 

Homer, of Moly and Nepenthe 

sings: 
Moly, the gods' most soueraigne 

hearb diuine, 

But this our age another world 

hath found, 
From whence an hearb of heauenly 

power is brought; 
Moly is not so soueraigne for a 

wound, 
Nor hath Nepenthe so great won- 
ders wrought: 
It is Tobacco, whose sweet sub- 

stantiall fume 
Tlie hellish torment of the teeth 

doth ease, 
By drawing downe, and drying up 

the rheume, 

It is Tobacco, which doth cold ex- 
pell, 



Evert) Man in his Humour 129 

And Knowel] adds : And cleares the obstructions of 

the arteries, 
This speech would have done de- ^nd surfeits, threatning death, 
cently in a tobacco-trader's mouth. diiesteth well 

Decocting all the stomack's crudi- 
ties: 



It is Tobacco, which hath power to 

rarifie 
The thick grosse humour which 

doth stop the hearing; 

0, that I were one of those Mounte- 

bankes, 
Which praise their oyles and 

powders which they sell! 
My customers would giue me coyne 

with thanks; etc. 

Finally, Bobadill's purpose to rid the country of enemies (IV, 5) 
is noticeably of the nature of the projects and monopolies which 
Jonson worked out so fully later in Politick Would-be and Meer- 
craft. These were matters of current satire before Every Man in. 
See The Merie Tales of Skelton, iv; Mery Tales and Quiche 
Answeres, 138 : Pleasant Conceites of Old Hobson, 12; and Nashe's 
Strange Neives (Vol. I, p. 331). A succinct history of monopolies 
during Elizabeth's reign is given in Price's English Patents of 
Monopoly. 

Thus the Plautine and the traditionary influence in the treat- 
ment of the braggart soldier undoubtedly remains in the literature 
of Jonson's period, but there is a growing tendency, exemplified in 
The Two Italian Gentlemen and Soliman and Perseda, to a treat- 
ment of the type more in accord with new conditions and new 
standards of manners. So in Bobadill we have a character who in 
certain fundamental traits illustrates the older conventions of the 
type, but one who has more qualities of the would-be gallant. 
These very qualities, of course, had quickly become conventionalized 
for the braggart in an age prone to borrowing. Much of the repe- 
tition in the various treatments of the type may be due to the fads 
that held sway in contemporary society, but the fads in literature 
are equally strong. When one phase of a character treatment or 
one mode of attack on follies had attracted attention, it was freely 



130 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

utilized, especially where it added to the realism of the char- 
acter. 

Perhaps the new type of braggart soldier was a native English 
type. Such men as Stukeley, for example, must have lent veri- 
similitude to the stage braggart. At any rate, the pretended soldier 
and his near kinsman the boasting traveler are especially popular 
objects of satire. The marvelous experiences and the marvelous 
exploits of men wlio have never left their native heath are treated 
again and again in the literature of the period.^ Though on ac- 
count of the sameness of literary treatment it seems quite safe to 
say that there is a large influence of literary conventions in these 
satirical portraits and sketches, tliey tmdoubtedly depicted many 
an upstart in England, so that as a generalized picture of man- 
ners they are true to life. 

Of the other socially inferior characters of the play. Cob and 
Brainworm are alone strongly or distinctly characterized. Cash 
and Formal are not complex; in fact, they do little more than 
serve as foils for Kitely and Brainworm. Cob himself in a sense 
furnishes a foil for the comic action. The humblest of clownish 
types, he is yet preyed upon by the pretentious Bobadill, who lives 
in his house; he prepares us for the appearance of Mathew and 
Bobadill by his characterization of them; his clownish notions of 
the effect of tobacco present a sharp contrast to Bobadill's praise of 
its virtues; he is the only person whom Bobadill dares to attack; 
one scene between him and his wife furnishes an excellent burlesque 
of Kitely's fear of being cuckolded; he affords an opportunity for 
the expression of Justice Clement's mad humour; he acts as mes- 
senger, and at his house assemble the various characters duped by 
Brainworm. Altogether he is an effective linking device for the 
play. But withal there is an independent interest in his portrayal. 
He is more than a mere fool or merrymaker for the groundlings, 
representing, as he does in part, the cruder London citizen with a 

^For this motive or slight variations on it cf. Hall, Virgidemiarum, Book 
III, Satire VII; Nashe, Works, Vol. I, pp. 169 and 205; Lodge, Wits 
Miserie, Hunterian Club, p. 4; Defence of Conny -catching, Works of Greene, 
ed. Grosart, Vol. XI, pp. 72flf.; Bullein, Dialogue against the Fever Pes- 
tilence, p. Ill; Ship of Fools, ed. Jamieson, Vol. II, pp. 66, 67; Merry 
Knack to Enow a Knave, Hazlitt's Dodsley, Vol. VI, p. 512. But com- 
pare Theophrastus's character of the Boastful Man, who, though he has 
never been out of Attica, pretends to have served under Alexander, to 
have brought home gemmed cups, etc. 



Every Man in Ms Humour 131 

half whimsical, half serious and dignified attitude to himself and 
his neighbors. Cob is older than the usual clown, a maiTied man, 
a housekeeper, and a water bearer, — a typical poor citizen. The 
same type of clown appears in Simplicity of The Three Ladies of 
London and The Three Lords and Three Ladies of London. In 
the second play. Simplicity is middle-aged, is married to Painful 
Penury, and has been a water bearer, as his wife now is. Both 
clowns represent the simpler and cruder poor man of London in 
contrast with characters who represent the follies or evils of Lon- 
don. Both clowns have their affected language, their whimsical 
conceits, and their marks of coarseness. Botli have a shrewd per- 
ception of the follies around them, and are naively satirical in their 
attitude to them. Both suffer from the shams and rascalities of 
their superiors. In The Three Ladies of London, Simplicity at 
the opening characterizes Fraud, who preys upon him, much as 
Cob does Bobadill and Mathew; Fraud would beat Simplicity for 
expressing his views of evils, as Bobadill does beat Cob in III, 2; 
and later Simplicity is beaten through Fraud's rascality. In The 
Three Lords and Three Ladies of London Fraud's capture is effected 
through Simplicity as Bobadill is to be arrested through Cob ; and, 
interestingly enough, Fraud is bound to a post, a type of punish- 
ment that Justice Clement in the Quarto promises Bobadill and 
Mathew. The kinship of the two characters emphasizes the didac- 
tic purpose underlying Jonson's work, with all of his realism and 
concreteness.^ Cob seems to be an artistic treatment of the type 
represented in Simplicity, in People of Respuhlica, and in other 
clowns of the moralities. 

Coh's mock genealogy and his plays upon his name have many 
English as well as classic precedents.^ Two passages are given to 
his genealogy (I, 3 and III, 2). "Why, sir, an ancient lineage, 
and a princely," he tells Mathew. ''Mine ance'try came from a 
king's belly . . . herring, the king of fish. . . . The first 
red herring that was broiled in Adam and Eve's kitchen, do I fetch 
rny pedigree from, by the harrot's book. His cob was my great, 
great, mighty great grandfather." Later (III, 2) he cries out on 
fasting, because his "lineage goes to wrack; poor cobs! they smoke 

^Cf. pp. 253 flf. infra for the relation of Cynthia's Revels to Wilson's plays. 
^The name of Onion in The Case is Altered and of Peter Tub in A Tale 
of a Tub are both played upon. 



132 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

for it/' etc. lu James IV (IV, 3) Slipper gives a similar mock 
pedigree: "A fine neate cahies leather ... is my neer kins- 
man, for I am Slipper . . . Guidwife Calf was my grand- 
mother, and goodman ISTeather-leather mine Vnckle; but my 
mother, good woman, Alas, she was a Spaniard." Clhittony in 
Doctor Faustus,^ also, tells of his ancestry : "My grandfather was 
a Gammon of Bacon, my Grandmother a hogshead of Claret wine," 
etc.2 

Brainworm, the intriguer of the play, represents the slave of 
Latin comedy in his love of intrigue, his resourcefulness and bold- 
ness, and his duping of the father through loyalty to the son. At- 
tention has also been called to Brainworm's likeness to the Italian 
zany, always intriguing by elaborate ruses and disguises "to humil- 
iate his master's enemies and rivals."^ But with the general foun- 
dation for the figure already laid, Jonson has filled in the char- 
acterization of Brainworm from English sources. In many details 
of the treatment Brainworm is the typical English coney-catcher. 
His first disguise is that of a common soldier begging for liveli- 
hood, and his boasted experiences furnish an interesting counter- 
part to Bobadill's. The soldier with the "smoky varnish" on his 
face pretends to have served fourteen years by land and sea, to 
have been wounded often and severely, to have been made a galley- 
slave thrice, to have seen many battles, sieges, and campaigns in 
various lands, and finally, coming home, to have been compelled 
to beg. This disguise of Brainworm's was a regular device of a 
coney-catcher whose line was begging. Honesty of A Knack to 
Know a Knave (Hazlitt's Dodsley, Vol. VI, p. 512) describes the 
character briefly: 

^Quoted from the Quarto of 1604. 

-Mouse of Mucedorus is the son of Rat, I, 4. Cf. also the kinship of 
Sly in The Taming of the Shreiv ; Pock of All Fools, III, 1; the person- 
ified Pint-pot of English Traveller, III, 4; and Ninny of Woynan is a 
Weathercock, I, 2. Somewhat similar passages occur in Like Will to 
Like, Hazlitt's Dodsley, Vol. Ill, p. 335, and Birth of Merlin, III, 4. The 
sons and daughters of Christmas in Jonson's Masque of Christmas, and 
similar folk burlesques may be mentioned in this connection. In The 
Silent Woman Jonson gives a notable source for the great house of 
La-Foole, which much resembles that of Goosecappe in 8ir Gyles Goose- 
cappe, 11. 97 ff. Pilcher's name in Blurt. Master Constahle, I, 2, is played 
upon just as Cob's is, and the puns are somewhat similar. 

^Cf. the article by Miss Winifred Smith in Modern Philology, Vol. V, 
pp. 562 flF. 



Every Man in Ids Humour 133 

And cogging Dick was in the crew that swore he came from France : 
He swore that in the king's defence he lost his arm by chance. 

A fuller description of him is found in The Hye Way to the 
Spyttel Hous (11. 279 ff.) : 

For they do were souldyers clothyng, 
And so beggyng deeeyue folke ouer all, 



. . . whan a man wold bryng them to thryft, 
They wyll hym rob, and fro his good hym lyft. 

These be they that dayly walkes and jettes 

In theyr hose trussed rounde to theyr dowblettes, 
And say: good maysters, of your charyte, 

Helpe vs poore men that come from the se; 
From Bonauenture we were caste to lande, 

God it knowes, as poorly as we stande! 
And sowtyme they say that they were take in Fraunce, 

And had ben there vii. yeres in duraunce; 
In Muttrell, in Brest, in Tourney or Tyrwyn, 

In Morlays, in Cleremount or in Hedyn; 
And to theyr countrees they haue ferre to gone, 

And amonge them all peny haue they none. 
Now, good mennes bodyes, wyll they say then, 

For Goddes sake helpe to kepe vs true men!^ 

The list of places suggests Brainworm's campaigns. In many- 
details this sketch is like Harman's picture of the type in his 
Caueat for Common Cursetors, though Harman is slightly closer to 
Brainworm : 

Eyther he [the Ruffler] hath serued in the warres, or els he hath bene 
a seruinge man . . . And with stout audacyte, demaundeth where 
he thinketh hee maye be bolde, and circomspecte ynough, as he sethe 
cause to aske charitie, rufully and lamentably, that it would make a 
flyntey hart to relent, and pytie his miserable estate, howe he hath bene 
maymed and broused in the warres (The Rogues and Vagabonds of Shak- 
spere's Youth, ed. Viles and Furnivall, New Shakspere Society, p. 29). 

[The Upright Man — ^who is very similar to the RuflBer — will] stoutely 
demaund his charytie, eyther shewing how he hath serued in the warres, 
and their maymed, eyther that he sekethe seruice, and saythe that he 
woiilde be glad to take payne for hys lyuinge, althoughe he meaneth 
nothinge lesse (p. 31). 

^See Hazlitt's note to the passage. Early Popular Poetry, Vol. IV, 
pp. 38flF. 



134 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

And if they chaunce to be retained into seruice, through their lament- 
able words, with any welthy man, They wyll tary but a smale tyme, 
either robbing his maister or som of his fellowes (p. 34). 

All this exactly describes Brainworm, with his war record, his 
weeping, his proposal to rob the elder Knowell, and his taking of 
service.'^ 

The incident that starts Brainworm on his career as a pretended 
officer of the law was possibly taken from the section "How George 
serued his Hostis" in The Jests of Peele {Shale esp ear e Jest-Boohs, 
Vol. II, pp. 302 ff.), which were probably current before Every Man 
in was written.^ The story is told of how Peele, having arranged 
for his clothes and everything in the room to be pawned by a friend, 
is left naked and escapes in old armor. In Every Man in, Brain- 
worm makes the justice's clerk Formal drunk, and strips him of 
his suit, leaving him to come home later encased in '^'rusty armor."^ 
Disguised as Formal, Brainworm fleeces Mathew and Bobadill, and 
then appears in the guise of a sergeant to arrest Downright, intend- 
ing, he declares, to "get either more pawns, or more money of 
Downright, for the arrest" (IV, 7). In this, however, he is foiled. 
In The Blaclce Boohes Messenger, Brown calls in a friend, who 
takes the guise of a constable in order to arrest the Maltman for 
the purpose of fleecing him, but has to resort to a subtle trick to 
succeed.* Brainworm's quick changes in disguise belong, of course, 
to the coney-catcher. Compare the rapid shifts of Looh About 
You, Dutch Courtezan, Blind Beggar of Bednal Green, Bartholo- 
mew Fair, etc. 

Of the more serious studies, Dame Kitely and Bridget are 
scarcely distinct enough to represent any influence. They are well 
characterized by Gifford in his edition of Jonson (Vol. I, p. 60). 

^In The Contention between Liberality and Prodigality, 1602, probably a 
revised play, a Captain Welldone (cf. Wellbred) enters (III, 5) begging 
and excusing himself just as Brainworm does. The language is fairly 
suggestive of Ev. M. in. 

^See p. 180 infra for evidence that the Jests were written early. 

'Cf. also "How George read a Playe-booke to a Gentleman" in The Jests 
of Peele {Shakespeare Jest-Boohs, Vol. II, pp. 293 ff. ) for a slightly sim- 
ilar episode. See also The Devil is an Ass, V, 1, for Pug's theft of 
Ambler's suit, and Blind Beggar of Bednal Green, II, 2, where cutpurses 
who shift from disguise to disguise, as does Brainworm, rob Strowd and 
leave him naked. 

*In Wits Miserie, p. 63, Lodge says of Brawling Contention : You 
shall hire him for a speciall baily if you come off with an angell." 



Every Man in his Htimoiir 135 

The friends young Knowell and Wellbred, one a scholar and poet 
and the other a high-spirited, gentlemanly gallant, have no inor- 
dinate humours or strong comic individuality; that is, they do not 
represent follies, although they lead a gay life. They suggest 
Plautine types, but on the whole are rather English. Just this 
pair of gentlemanly friends, loving mischief and scorning inordi- 
nate folly, l)ecame popular later, especially with Beaumont and 
Fletcher.^ In Every Man in they play upon the gulls and the 
humour types and render their follies more ridiculous, a function 
that Lemot of An Humorous Day's Mirth discharges, though he 
reminds us more of Macilente. It is a rather new function in 
dramatic plotting, and was probably developed by Chapman for 
the exposure of the humour types. Of Wellbred, however, Kitely 
and Downright do not take so mild a view. In II, 1, Kitely says 
of him : 

He and his wild associates spend their hours, 

In repetition of lascivious jests, 

Swear, leap, drink, dance, and revel night by night. 

And Downright a little later declares : "I am grieved it should 
be said he is my brother, and take these courses." But these two 
sober citizens seem to have been oppressed by the gayety of Well- 
bred, who is not treated in the play as lacking courage, sense, or 
honor. 

There remain Kitely, Downright, Justice Clement, and the elder 
Knowell, characters with decided humours. These four certainly 
do not represent types so strongly as do the other characters. It 
is probable that Jonson, who to my mind always engrafts upon his 
most original work some details drawn from his vast knowledge 
of literature, had a number of suggestions for each of these char- 
acters, but it is not obvious here, as in the case of the soldier and 
the gulls, that he took over distinct outlines and merely gave new 
life and a new turn to what he borrowed. In these more serious 
characters, representing in every case a strong individuality and a 
rather worthy nature in spite of the predominance of some humour, 
we seem to have studies of life with an occasional suggestion from 
literature enriching the treatment. In each of the four characters 

^TJie Two Angry Women of AMngton, possibly later than Ev. M. in, 
has a faint echo of them in Francis and his friend Philip, who offers his 
sister to Francis in marriage. 



136 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

there is something of the more wholesome middle-class life of Eng- 
land. There is thorough manliness in Downright and Clement, 
and, as opposite as their humours are, both are expressive of the 
English spirit of independence and self-assertion. Contrasted with 
these two outspoken characters are Kitely and Knowell with their 
kindliness of spirit and lack of driving force, in fact with a cer- 
tain natural timidity in the expression of self. 

Kitely is a notable study of the humour of jealousy, for, in spite • 
of the innumerable treatments of the theme that fill all literature 
and especially all Elizabethan literature preceding and following 
Jonson, Kitely seems to be fairly distinct in the details of his 
action under the influence of jealousy, and free from the most com- 
mon symptoms of the humour. Corvino and Fitzdottrel, Jon- 
son's other important studies of jealousy, are really conventional 
treatments in comparison. They follow the conception of jealousy 
as a dangerous passion, whereas Kitely's diseased attitude is less 
weighted with tragic intensity. Under the influence of the word 
humour, Jonson has made what might be called a pathological 
study of Kitely, stressing the power of mental attitude to stir his 
imagination, in spite of Kitely's efforts to check his folly and his 
recognition of it as a disease that has taken hold upon him. 

In Greenes Vision, there are two stories dealing with jealousy, 
which, though in outline very different from Jonson's treatment, 
are interesting because jealousy is often called a humour and there 
are certain analyses of it as a disease. At the end of the first 
story, the jealous husband, who has been drugged, has his sickness 
explained to him : "1 will tell thee Sonne this disease is a mad 
bloud tbat lies in thy head, which is growne from iealousie, take 
heede of it, for if it should continue but sixe dayes, it would make 
thee starke mad" (Works of Greene, Vol. XII, p. 234). The sec- 
ond story opens with an account of how a merchant of wealth and 
position, having married a beautiful woman, grows jealous of the 
merchants who resort to his house, as Kitely is jealous of the gal- 
lants who frequent his house with his brother Wellbred. The two 
husbands soliloquize on woman's frailty at times in somewhat the 
same vein, and Vandermast tries to reason himself out of his 
humour as Kitely tries to check his. In this second story (p. 254) 
jealousy is described as a "canckar, that fretteth the quiet of the 
thoughts ... a poyson spetially opposed against the perfec- 



Every Man in his Humour 



137 



tions of loue." Greene adds, "The hart being once infected with 
iealousie, the sleepes are broken/' etc. With these passages from 
Greene compare Kitely's soliloquy on his disease.^ 

Gifford calls attention to the parallel between Kitely's cautious 
approach to Cash in III, 2, and King John's sounding of Hubert 
in King John, III, 3. The parallel is striking. Both Kitely and 
King John set value upon an oath of loyalty, both start several 
times to tell their secrets, both stop and turn to flattery of the 
listener and to a discussion of matters not closely related to the 
thing in hand, and both finally entrust the close secret — King John 
immediately and Kitely later. Gifford speaks of Shakespeare's 
greater power, 'but the power lies in the poetry of Shakespeare. 
For the stage device showing caution, hesitation, and drawing back 
where one wishes to use another and yet fears to trust him, Jonson 
has surpassed the master. Some parallels in language also occur. 



Jonson. 

Kit[ely]. It shall be so. 

Nay, I dare build upon his secrecy, 
He knows not to deceive me. — 
Thomas! 
Cash. Sir. 

Kit. Yet now I have bethought 
me too, I will not. — 
Thomas, is Cob within? 

Thomas — you may deceive me, but, 

I hope — 
Your love to me is more — 
Cash. Sir, if a servant's 
Duty, with faith, may be called love, 

you are 
More than in hope, you are possessed 

of it. 
Kit. I thank you heartily, 

Thomas: give me your hand: 
With all my heart, good Thomas. 

I have, Thomas, 



Shakespeare. 

K[ing] John. Come hither, Hu- 
bert. my gentle Hubert, 
We owe thee much ! . . . 

And, my good friend, thy voluntary 

oath 
Lives in this bosom, dearly cher- 
ished. 
Give me thy hand. I had a thing 

to say, — 
But I will fit it with some better 

time. 
By Heaven, Hubert, I'm almost 

ashamed 
To say what good respect I have of 

thee. 
Hul). I am much bounden to 

your Majesty. 
K. John. Good friend, thou hast 

no cause to say so yet: 



'Quoted on page 43 supra. 

In Fenton's Tragicall Discourses, TV, the terms diseases and humour 
are applied a number of times to jealousy. The two words are practically 
synonymous. 



138 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

A secret to impart unto you ... I had a thing to say, — but let it go: 

The Sun is in the heaven . . . 

Think I esteem you, Thomas, 

When I will let you in thus to my Then, in despite of brooded watch- 
private, ful day, 

I would into thy bosom pour my 

I know thy faith to be as firm as thoughts: 

rock. But, ah, I will not! yet I love thee 

Thomas, come hither, near; we can- well; 

not be And, by my troth, I think thou 

Too private in this business. So lovest me well. 

it is. Hub. So well, that what you bid 

— Now he has sworn, I dare the me undertake, 

safelier venture. [Aside. Though that my death were adjunct 

I have of late, by divers observa- to my act, 

tions — By Heaven, I'd do't. 

K. John. Do not I know thou 

Thomas, it will be now too long to wouldst? 

stay, 
I'll spy some fitter time soon, or 

tomorrow. 

For Downright with his proverbs, his blunt speech, and his im- 
patience there is probably no immediate forerunner. The use of 
proverbs is common in clownish types, but unusual for one of Down- 
right's social position. Studies of impatience, anger, bluntness, 
are also not uncommon. Jonson himself had already treated the 
humour of impatience in Ferneze of The Case is Altered. Lodge 
in Wits Miserie gives a whole section to analyzing the various 
phases of the deadly sin Wrath, and among many details that fit 
neither Ferneze nor Downright there is one passage on Impatience 
(p. 72) which describes Downright: "He will not stay to hear 
an answere whilest a man may excuse himselfe, nor endure any 
reading if it fit not his purpose, nor affect anie learning that 
feedes not his humor." Downright impatiently checks Kitely's 
explanations, and demands that he come to the point (II, 1) ; and, 
when Bobadill attempts to parley (IV, 5), Downright beats liim 
incontinently. As Mathew is about to read his verses (IV, 1), 
Downright cries out, "Hoy-day, here is stuff !" and later, "Death ! 
I can indure the stocks better." Wellbred explains Downright's 
impatience on the occasion by saying, "A rhime to him is worse 
than cheese, or a bagpipe." On the whole, however, the character 



Every Man in his Humour 139 

of Downriglit does not seem to carry on definitely any conventional 
treatment of wrath or impatience. Certainly there is small ground 
for comparing him with Falconbridge or Hotspur, Shakespeare's 
studies of the irascible nature. In Shakespeare's characters, espe- 
cially Falconbridge, bluntness and impatience are not the control- 
ling factors, but merely a mask for a finer nature — secondary fac- 
tors derived from spiritual honesty. 

Justice Clement, also, with his mad, merry humour, his love of 
a jest, his good fellowship and kindly spirit, and withal his keen 
commonsense and his justice, is, so far as I know, a unique figure 
in the drama. The foolish justice was proverbial. Justice Silence 
had rendered him a telling stage figure about the time of Every 
Man in, and he appears in How a Man May Choose a Good Wife 
from a Bad probably not long after. The type is common in jest 
books also. Jonson himself takes up the character later in 
Bartholomew Fair and The Devil is an Ass. Clement, however, is 
not the foolish justice, but shrewd and whimsical. The portrayal 
of Sir Thomas More as a magistrate in the play of Sir Thomas 
More illustrates the type in some details very well indeed ; as, for 
example, in his surprising use of jests when dealing with characters 
representing follies, in his learning and his quick parodies of pre- 
tentious language, in his readiness always to meet folly as a chal- 
lenge, and in his fundamental justice and leniency.^ 

The elder Knowell, the country gentleman solicitous about his 
son's small follies and in sympathy with the old regime, is also to 
a large extent a fresh liumour type. One phase of his characteri- 
zation, however, shows considerable literary influence and no little 
skill on Jonson's part. Knowell is not an allegorical figure, but 
he does seem to stand for the older virtues, older morals, and the 
conservative tendencies of society — as Cob seems to stand for a 
social principle. Knowell, with his old-fashioned manners and 
wisdom, is contrasted with the new manners and follies of his son, 
and to a certain extent he furnishes a chorus or commentator on 

^For a bit of Clement's burlesque poetry given in the Quarto (11. 2853 
ff.) Prof. Penniman points out a parallel in Wits Miserie, p. 23. Cf. 
introduction to his edition of Poetaster and Satiromastix. Gifford 
(Jonson's Works, Vol. I, p. 57, note 2) has suggested the similarity 
between another burlesque of Clement's and a passage in Googe's Zodiacke. 
For two earlier instances of the Justice's pun (V, 1) on the "whole realm, 
a commonwealth of paper" that Mathew carries in his hose, cf. Hart, 
9 N. and Q., Vol. XI, p. 501. , 



140 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

the follies of the central characters in the play. To a certain 
extent, also, he is a forerunner of Asper and Crites, though he is 
more strongly individualized than Jonson's other con&ervers of 
morals, and he scarcely expresses Jonson's own ideals so consist- 
ently as they do. As critic of the follies that Jonson is studying in 
Every Man in, Knowell represents the conservative ideals of the 
better middle class; Asper is a whipper of social follies, imbued 
with the spirit of contemporary satire; and Crites is the critic 
whose own ideal character renders him the judge of the types of 
ignorance and folly. The significance of these characters is much 
more evident, of course, in Asper and Crites than in Knowell, but 
to my mind Knowell in one phase of his characterization con- 
tinues Jonson's idea of a commentator which had its inception in 
Valentine of The Case is Altered. Knowell's function as the con- 
serving social force comes out in his numerous soliloquies and in 
his rebukes of folly. His tendency to moralizing becomes, like 
Macilente's envy and possibly Asper's harshness, a humour, while 
Crites represents a contrast to humours. Yet in each case the type 
is that of the moralizer. 

Knowell soliloquizes on his scholarly son's pursuit of "^'idle poe- 
try" (I, 1) ; on his son's choice of a companion (I, 1) ; on the 
method he shall pursue in dealing with his son (I, 1) ; and, in the 
Folio, on the evils in the modern system of rearing children (II, 3). 
Instead of this last soliloquy, the Quarto has one on the proper 
sway of reason over man. In T, 1, Knowell rebukes Stephen for 
quarreling and for extravagance, and gives him a moral lecture 
embracing well-known maxims of conduct; and in II, 3, the beg- 
ging soldier's degenerate, servile type of life falls under his cen- 
sure. Otherwise Knowell's participation in the play is slight except 
for the trick played upon him by his own son, though the fact that 
he follows Edward Knowell to London gives a motive for much 
of the action. 

A father's soliloquy on the course of his son, in spirit much like 
those of Knowell in the opening scenes, may be found in Lodge's 
Alarum against Usurers (Shakespeare Society, pp. 49, 50). In 
both cases the fact is mentioned that the son stood high in favor 
at the universities. Knowell's conviction in regard to the fruitless- 
ness of poetry as a piirsuit is very closely paralleled in some lines 
which Gifford quotes from the part of Old Hieronimo in The 



Every Man in his Humour 141 

Spanish Tragedy (IV, 1, 11. 69 ff.). The Folio soliloquy on 
fathers' training their children in evil living is drawn almost 
wholly from the classics, as Whalley and Gifford point out, but the 
ideas had become commonplace in the didactic literature of Eng- 
land and consequently fit well into the fatherly humour of Knowell.^ 
The corresponding Quarto soliloquy (11. 880 ff.) presents an elab- 
orate figure of Reason placed by Nature as king over the estate of 
man "to haue the marshalling of our affections." The affections 
often rebel against 

Their liege Lord Reason, and not shame to tread 
Vpon his holy and annointed head. 

This same figure, about which, however, there is of course nothing 
strikingly distinctive, forms the plot of Medwell's Nature, Part I. 
N'ature endows man with Reason and Sensuality, but Reason is to 
be "chyef gyde" and to "gouerne" (11. 99 ff.). Immediately Sen- 
suality raises a revolt, and man rebels against Reason, going so 
far as to smite him on the head (11. 1155 ff.).^ 

More interesting for its conventionality than any of these solil- 
oquies is the passage in which Knowell lays down five rules of con- 
duet for the guidance of Stephen (I, 1). The advice is similar 
to that which Polonius later gives to Laertes. Knowell warns 
Stephen against spending money on baubles and on foolish com- 
panions; against invading every place; against the use of flashing 
bravery; against living beyond his income; and against standing 
upon a gentility of birth rather than of deeds. Similar advice, 
usually of a father to a son, is to be found frequently in English 
literature of this period,^ and to trace such lists of maxims would 

^Cf. Babington, Ten Commandments, quoted in the introduction to the 
New Shakspere Society edition of Stubbes's Anatomy of Abuses, p. 82*; 
Wager, The Longer thou Livest, 11. 114 ff. and 1012 ff. ; Lodge, Fig for 
Momus, Hunterian Club, pp. 33 ff. ; Lyly, Euphues, Works, ed. Bond. Vol. 
I, pp. 185 and 244; Northbrooke, Treatise against Dancing, etc., Shake- 
speare Society, pp. 11, 12; etc. 

-Cf. pp. 161 f. infra for parallels between the second part of Nature and 
Every Man out. 

'Cf. Euphues, Works of Lyly, Vol. I, pp. 189 f. (repeated in almost the 
same form on p. 286); Vol. II, pp. 16 f., 149, 187 f.; Lodge, Rosalind, 
near the beginning; Lodge, Euphues his Shadow, Hunterian Club, p. 13; 
Margarite of America, Hunt. Club, pp. 18, 19; Fig for Momus. Hunt. 
Club, p. 59; Alarum against Usurers, Shakespeare Society, p. 75; Greene, 
Carde of Fancie, Works, ed. Grosart, Vol. IV, pp. 21, 22; Mourning Gar- 
ment, Vol. IX, pp. 137 ff.; Breton, Wits Trenchmour, pp. 14 and 18. 



142 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

be a hopeless task. The study of the ultimate sources of these 
lists has, so far as I know, been undertaken most fully by Fischer 
in his edition of Hoiv the Wyse Man Taught hys Sone (Erlanger 
Beitriige, Band I, Heft II, pp. 11 &.), where he traces a large 
number of such precepts from Cato on through Old and Middle 
English.'^ Account must also be taken of the Italian courtesy 
books, the name of which was doubtless legion and which extended 
to all lengths and covered all phases of conduct. Knowell, for 
example, makes gentility a matter of the individual man, an idea 
which is rather fully dealt with in Euphues (Works of Lyly, Vol. 
I, pp. 316 ff.). The discussion of nobility of birth along with 
rules of conduct is frequent in Italian courtesy books, where some- 
times the Adew of Jonson and Lyly is expressed, and sometimes 
that which lays chief stress on birth and wealth, as in Castiglione's 
Courtier.^ Doubtless all of Knowell's wisdom was derived from 
the moral and educational treatises of the Eenaissance, which were 
largely Italian, though much of his moralizing may have been 
familiar to Jonson in the classics also. 

Knowell's whole attitude of loyalty to the older standards of 
morals and manners is illustrated by Greene's Quip for an Upstart 
Courtier (Works, Vol. XI, pp. 233 ff.), where Cloth-breeches 
praises the simplicity of the older regime in England in contrast 
with the regime of present day upstarts. In Two Angry Women 
of Ahington, also^ Coomes praises the old sword days as opposed to 
the modern rapier days (II, 4). 

In turning with Every Man in from the recognized types of com- 
edy to a serious program of satire on humours, Jonson sets forth 
rather definitely in the prologue his critical and moral purpose. 
It has frequently been pointed out that the critical ideas expressed 

^Forster, Engl. Stud., Vol. 36, pp. 1 ff. prints a Middle English version 
of Cato's maxims. A large number of texts are printed in The Babees 
Book, etc., E. E. T. S., No. 32, and in Qiieene Elizabethes Achademy, etc., 
E. E. T. S., E. S., No. 8. In this last volume Dr. Furnivall prints one 
poem giving a mother's advice to a daughter. The advice of a mother to 
her daughter occurs in Phillip's play of Patient Grissell. In James IV, 
I, 1, 11. 151 if., the father advises the daughter. 

-Cf. also Rossetti, Essay on Early Italian Courtesy Books, E. E. T. S., 
E. S., No. 8, pp. 12 and 56; Holme, Mod. Lang. Review, Vol. V, pp. 145 flf.; 
Stubbes, Anatomy of Abuses, pp. 42, 43 and notes, where classic parallels 
are given. Einstein, Italian Renaissance in England, pp. 61 ff. gives what 
is perhaps the clearest and best discussion of the conflicting ideals in re- 
gard to nobility. 



Every Man in his Humour 143 

in the prologue were generally current among students of criticism 
in the Eenaissance.^ The ideas and even the wording are often 
paralleled in Sidney's Defense of Poesy.- Almost the same objec- 
tions, however, to the absurdities of romantic plays were expressed 
by Sidney's predecessor, Whetstone, in the dedication of Promos 
and Cassandra; and about the time that Every Man in was written, 
and almost certainly before the prologue was written, these ideas 
were dramatized in the notable critical induction of A Warning 
for Fair Women, printed in 1599. 

^Cf. Gifford, Works of Jonson, Vol. I, p. 2; Penniman, The War of the 
Theatres, pp. 14 ff. ; Smith, Eliz. Grit. Essays, Vol. 1, pp. xxxi S., and espe- 
cially p. xliii; Spingarn, Grit. Essays of the Seventeenth Gent., Vol. I, pp. 
xiii ff. 

"Cf. especially the parallels cited by Professor Spingarn. 



CHAPTEE VII 

EVERY MAN OUT OF HIS HUMOUR 

The 3^ears 1598 and 1599 were notable in the production of 
satire. Early in the decade such prose works as Greene's Quip, 
Nashe's Pierce Petiilesse, and Lodge's Wits Miserie marked a defi- 
nite advance in one phase of the satiric movement. At the same 
time verse satire was coming into popularity. Donne's satires 
seem to have been written about 1593; Campion's Poemata (in 
Latin) and Lodge's Fig for Momus date from 1595; and Da vies' 
Epigrammes were produced about the same time. But the real 
satiric outburst began in 1597 with Hall's Virgidemiarum. In 
1598 appeared Marston's Metamorphosis of Pygmalion's Image 
and Certain Satires, the same author's Scourge of Villainy, Guil- 
pin's Skialetheia, Bastard's Chrestolcros, and Eankins' Seaven 
Satyres. Early in 1599 appeared Middleton's Micro-Cynicon,'^ 
and during the course of the year Weever's Epigrams in the Oldest 
Cut and Newest Fashion. The vogue was met by an order of 
June 1, 1599, restraining satires and epigrams, which singled out 
as especially obnoxious the works of Hall, Marston, Guilpin, and 
Middleton. The satirical poems and the collections of satires and 
epigrams that appeared during the next two years, notwithstand- 
ing, speak for the strength of the movement. The influence of 
this school of formal satire on Jonson is to be felt in Every Man 
in of 1598, but in 1599^ he produced the first of his comical 
satires, Every Man out of his Humour, a play that transfers to 
the stage the whole tone, spirit, and range of the popular contem- 
porary satire. 

The changes from Every Man in to Every Man out are clearly 
marked, but not sweeping. In both plays some of the broader 
phases of didacticism or of the older forms of satire are blended 

^I use Middleton's name for convenience although Middleton's author- 
ship has been doubted by some and Motfat's suggested. Cf. Cambridge 
Hist. Eng. Lit., Vol. IV, p. 589, for example. 

'The Folio states that the play was acted in 1599. For Jonson this 
does not mean the beginning of the year 1600. Cf. Thorndike. Influence 
of Beaumont and Fletcher on Shakespeare, p. 17. Ev. M. out was doubt- 
less finished toward the end of 1599, after the production of Julius 
Caesar. 



Every Man out of his Humour 145 

with the new satire. For the quick dissection of follies, Every 
Man out has seized upon the character sketch, which goes back 
to earlier English prose but connects closely with the popular epi- 
gram also. The critical ideas of Jonson have developed into a 
definite system, and are expounded. With Every Man out, also, 
humour assumes for him a much more exact meaning, and, accord- 
ing to the definition which he gives, is more consistently repre- 
sentative of inner character. Many of the character types of 
Every Man in are carried over into Every Man out, though the 
characterization is more completely from the point of view of 
humours. Brisk continues the type illustrated in Mathew, but 
with a more vigorous personality. He is much more clearly the 
gallant and less the gull. His boasts of his prowess and his func- 
tion as model for the true gull Fungoso connect him with Bob- 
adill of Every Man in. The country gull Stephen has developed 
into Fungoso and Sogliardo, both of whom are clearly individual- 
ized. Like Stephen, they ape the fashion of gallants, but each 
follows in a difl^erent way the follies of London life into which 
ihey are plunging. As studies of a citizen and his wife, Deliro 
and Fallace stand in definite contrast to Kitely and his wife, while 
Fido is a colorless repetition of Cash. In general, the characters 
of Every Man out represent more clearly than do those of Every 
Man in various phases of the affected gallantry and singularity 
which the contemporary satirists were attacking. While the types 
are almost as varied as in Every Man in, they all belong to a nar- 
rower sphere, the world of the posers and spendthrifts, with those 
who heap money for them, like Sordido, or those who are used by 
them, like Deliro, or those who prey upon them, like Shift. Con- 
sequently, the types are rather more specific than in Every Man in, 
representative of more definite follies. So for Knowell, the 
respectable, moral gentleman of the suburbs of London, there 
appears Puntarvolo, "consecrated to singularity," and as antiquated 
in his affectation of the forms of chivalry as Knowell is in his 
moralizing. Instead of Bridget with her respectability despite the 
fact that Mathew is her servant, appears Saviolina, as foolish as 
her servant Brisk. Instead of Brainworm, a mixed type of Eoman 
slave and English coney-catcher, appears Shift, also a pretended 
soldier, a beggar, and a rogue, but one whose path lies close to 
that of the gulls and pretended gallants. The clown Cob has been 



146 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

dropped, and tlie rustic Sordido, brother and father of the two 
gulls, has been added. Downright with his humour of impatience 
has given place to a new type of scourger, Carlo, the "profane 
jester," who "will transform any man into deformity." Knowell 
and Wellbred, the pair of gallants of a respectable sort, have dis- 
appeared in this study of thoroughgoing follies, and their func- 
tion of exposing the gulls and the humour types is taken by 
Macilente, whose humour of envy makes him an effective agent in 
the satiric comedy intended to lash the follies of the day. The 
Plautine elements in Jonson's humour plays thus drop out, and 
a character more suggestive of the allegorical figure of Envy in 
the moralities becomes the intriguer. The whole play is more 
English in tone. It is a gigantic burlesque of English manners, 
in the spirit and form of the contemporary satire, and yet close 
to life, as we must feel. 

For a defence of his new type of play Jonson has made use of 
the machinery of induction and chorus. The fashion of setting 
before the audience in dramatic form whatever tlie author wished 
understood as preliminary to the play had already become rather 
widespread in the contemporary English drama. The device took 
many forms. A character typical of some period in the past or 
one representing a source might be chosen, as in the case of Skel- 
ton in Munday's DoivnfaU of Robert Earl of Huntington,^ or of 
Higden in what is probably an old play, The Mayor of Queen- 
horough. In other inductions the characters often represented the 
tone or quality of the play. The atmosphere enveloping The Span- 
ish Tragedy is typified in tlie Gliost and Eevenge, who comment 
as they sit by. More dramatic is the opening of Soliman and 
Perseda, where Love, Fortune, and Death contend as to who shall 
control. The contest motive for revealing the tone of a play was 
popular. Tragedy prevails over Comedy and History in A Warn- 
ing for Fair Women, and the tone suggested by the victory of 
Tragedy dominates the play as thoroughly as Asper's spirit per- 
vades Every Man out. Tragedy, indeed, speaks somewhat in the 
manner of Asper; and the criticism of absurd plays suggests the 
prologue to Every Man in. An excellent counterpart to A Warn- 

^Jonson has followed in Ev. M. out, in Cynthia's Revels, and elsewhere 
Munday's device of introducing into the induction the actors of the play. 



Every Man out of his Humour 147 

ing for Fair Women is found in Wily Beguiled, where the title 
Spectrum is spirited away by Juggler, and fun prevails.^ 

More closely allied to the special type of induction adopted in 
Every Man out is the device of a group of plays in which the atti- 
tude of an audience is represented through actors who take the 
role of spectators. Indeed, the presenter and the critic were 
already established upon the English stage, though the treatment 
had usually been humorous and satirical rather than serious and 
judicial. In The Old Wives' Tale the clowns are diverting comic 
figures, but their importance lies in furnishing for the play a pre- 
senter and a chorus of Jonson's type. Madge, who starts the folk- 
tale taken up by the play, is presenter, and embodies the spirit of 
the play somewhat as Asper does in Every Man out. Peele was 
satirizing the hurly-burly of romance as much in the presenter of 
his potpourri of folk-lore and romance as in the play itself. Asso- 
ciated with Madge are Fantastic and Frolic, two sympathetic spec- 
tators, who express their interest by occasional questions and 
remarks — not critical, however. In The Taming of a Shrew, the 
part of Sly, less fully developed by Shakespeare in The Taming of 
the Shrew, not only introduces a humorous element but again 
gives the occasion for some ironical satire on the tastes of such 
spectators as Sly. Undoubtedly, too, the humorous purpose in 
presenting a spectator on the stage is uppermost in Summer's 
Last Will and Testament, but the humor arises largely, as in the 
case of Sly, from the satire on the dramatic taste of the common 
clown, to whom neither poetry nor a serious study of character 
can appeaP — for ISTashe's use of folk-lore has the interest both of 
poetic fancy and of moralizing and philosophizing on the part of 
the allegorical characters. Summer, with his mockery of all that 
is most serious in the play, typifies the limitations of the audience. 
Through the device, Nashe is enabled at once to stress his more 
critical purpose and, by paradox, to suggest explanations and 
values. Jonson foolishly took the direct method in Every Man 

^Cf. the strife of Envy and Comedy in Mticedorus. 

Spectrum in Wily Beguiled is suggestive of satiric comedy. Indeed, the 
whole spirit of tlie prologue would seem to indicate that so much of the 
play, at least, was written after the rise of strongly satiric comedy. 

^Cf. Wilson, Arte of Rheforique, ed. Mair, p. 198, for a serious discus- 
sion of this matter. 



148 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

out, but for most of his later inductions he follows ISTashe in using 
the indirect approach. The gossips of The Staple of Neivs, as 
well as the citizen and his wife in Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight 
of the Burning Pestle, are to my mind distinctly modeled on 
ISTashe's device of Will Summer. Even in the enveloping action 
of Every Man out, though the method differs from Nashe's, there 
are several details betraying a kinship, — the mockery of prologue 
and author, the statement of the principle that satire is aimed not 
at individuals but at classes, and the attitude of superiority to 
ignorant critics. 

The induction of Jarrtes IV, while not so important for Jonson 
as that of Summer's Last Will and Testament, offers in its seri- 
ousness and greater directness a closer parallel to the spirit of Jon- 
son's treatment. In Greene's play, Bohan, a cynic and scorner of 
the evils of life, leads Oberon to "the Gallery" to show him a pic- 
ture of the follies of the Scottish court, in order that Oberon may 
"iudge if any wise man would not leaue the world if he could." 
The serious satirical purpose of Bohan as presenter, the malcon- 
tent type in him, which suggests Asper-Macilente, and the discus- 
sion of the moral between acts all connect Greene's treatment with 
Jonson's. 

In Every Man out the enveloping machinery of presenter and 
chorus is for the purpose of defending Jonson's methods and enun- 
ciating Ills critical opinions. The discussion of the habits of 
theatre-goers (II, 4), and the ridicule of Munday's citizen type of 
comedy (I, 1) which are to be found in The Case is Altered are 
episodic, and satirical rather than constructive. More important 
for the development of Jonson's theories is the satire on false 
poetry in Every Man in and the defense of true poetry which 
appears in the Q.uarto.^ With Every Man out, the criticism that 
before had been scattered is organized and definitely formulated 
as throwing light on Jonson's purposes. Asper, the presenter, 
stands for the ideals of satiric comedy. He is the scourger, the 
embodiment of the satirical spirit abroad. Often, as when he 
addresses the "gracious and kind spectators," he may represent the 
author, just as Macilente, whose role is taken by the actor playing 
Asper, is in many respects the mouthpiece of Jonson. But Asper 

^The prologvie of Ev. M. in, stating definitely Jonson's ideal in comedy, 
doubtless belongs to a period as late as Ev. M. out, perhaps later. 



Every Man out of his Humour 149 

is to my mind a familiar type, the stern and fearless castigator of 
evils. As a scourger he contrasts with Macilente, whose hatred of 
folly is contaminated by a mixture of unworthy envy ; and the two 
men stand for two types of satirists. When Macilente is cured of 
his humour of envy, he becomes a wortliy figure of the age, — 
Asper again, the embodiment of a noble indignation against folly. 
But other matters besides the satirical purpose of the play come in 
for consideration, also, and questions of stage-craft needed to be 
discussed in a critical, judicial spirit not suited to Asper. Corda- 
tus and Mitis are accordingly introduced as judicial observers and 
critics of the play as a play. 

Inevitably, in presenting the ideal satirist and the ideal critic, 
Jonson presents his own theories for satire and his own estimate 
of his work. The greater egoism, of course, lies in portraying the 
ideal critic of his work, for in Asper as scourger Jonson might 
readily feel that he embodied the satirical ideals of Chapman, let 
us say, as much as his own. In defence of Jonson's whole attitude 
to his mission and his art it should be urged that the militant 
spirit in literature was stronger at the end of the sixteenth century 
than ever before or since, perhaps, though the rigidity of Jonson's 
intellectual nature made him carry the spirit through his whole 
career when once he came under the dominance of it. The age 
was one in which sharp social and religious cleavage made bitter 
polemics popular; in which the development of the ideals of in- 
dividuality allowed a man to defend confidently his own views and 
accomplishments ; and in which, paradoxically enough, the follow- 
ing of fixed standards and systems by certain groups rendered a 
poet's defence of himself a defence of the ideals of his group. 
Much of Jonson's egoism is thus a result of a belief in ideals 
rather than in self. The struggle of the newly developing classi- 
cism was one of the influences that intensified the spirit of aggres- 
siveness and dogmatism in Jonson's group, though more potent, 
perhaps, was the nature of the men themselves, — Nashe, Marston, 
and Jonson in particular. The influence of Kashe is especially 
conspicuous. To my mind, he set the tone for English satire. 

For the ideas expounded by Asper and the chorus, much of 
Jonson's material was derived from classic or Italian sources, but 
he has culled out what was especially applicable to English liter- 
ature and had been approved by preceding critics and satirists. 



150 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

The literary affiliations of Asper are, of course, to be sought first 
of all in formal satire, and, brief as the part is, it is remarkable 
how many conventions of the satirical school it illustrates. Even 
Asper's fashion of turning from one point to another without any 
organized program for venting his indignation marks him as the 
typical satirist. The most conspicuous exception, perhaps, is that he 
does not affect harshness and obscurity of language. In portraying 
Asper as satirist, however, it is to be remembered that Jonson was 
following a type of literature whose lines of treatment were very 
definitely marked, more so perhaps than the common influence of 
classicism on the writers of the school would naturally explain, 
though that was great enough. The satirists followed each other 
very closely. ISTashe's Pierce Pcnilcsse influenced Lodge's ^Yits 
Miserie. Guilpin seems to have been indebted to Lodge and Davies 
as well as to Marston. Donne, Hall, and Marston show clear 
traces of kinship. The conmiunity of ideas and methods among 
all these men is strikingly revealed by a cursory reading; even the 
recurrence of certain words, like galled, is noticeable.^ 

The chief function of the satirist was, of course, to scourge vice 
and folly. The evils are naturally much the same in all the satire 
of the period — in the satire of all periods, one might well say. I 
have already spoken of the classification of vices in the prose 
satirists, especially in connection with humours. Asper runs 
briefly over a list of evil-doers, — the strumpet, broker, usurer, law- 
yer, courtier, with "their extortion, pride, or lusts," — and dis- 
misses them as 

so innate and popular, 
That drunken custom would not shame to laugh, 
In scorn, at him, that should but dare to tax 'em. 

He pauses long enough, however, to direct a special paragraph 
against the Puritan. In the second of the satires included with 
Pygmalion's Image. Marston arraigns the Puritans similarly, 
though his charges are more concrete and specific. Interestingly 
enough, Asper's speech, according to Gifford, goes back in many 

^Similarly, when once Jonson had achieved notable success in adapting 
the methods of satire to the uses of comedy, the dramatists followed him 
as quickly as the satirists followed each other. The reaction of the drama 
on satire is pretty clear also. Rowlands' Letting of Humour's Blood in 
the Head Vein, for instance, seems to me to have been strongly influenced 
by Every Man out. 



Every Man out of his Humour' 



151 



details to Juvenal's description of the feigned Stoics, so that we 
find Jonson again fitting his classic material into the mold of con- 
temporary life. I quote the passages from Jonson and Marston 
for the parallelism in method. 



Jonson 



Marston 



0, but to such whose faces are all Tliat same devout meal-mouth'd 

zeal, precisian, 

And, with the words of Hercules That cries "Good brother," "Kind 

invade sister," makes a duck 

Such crimes as these! that will not After the antique grace, can always 

smell of sin, pluck 

But seem as thev were made of A sacred book out of his civil hose. 



sanctitv ! 

Religion in their garments, and 
their hair 

Cut shorter than their eyebrows! 
when the conscience 

Is vaster than the ocean, and de- 
vours 

More wretches than the counters. 



And at th' op'ning and at our stom- 
ach's close, 

Says with a turn'd-up eye a solemn 
grace 

Of half an hour; then with silken 

face 
Smiles on the holy crew, and then 

doth cry, 
"0 manners! times of impurity!" 



— who thinks that this good 

man 
Is a vile, sober, damned politician? 
Not I, till with his bait of purity 
He bit me soi'e in deepest usury. 
No Jew, no Turk, would use a 

Christian 
So inhumanely as this Puritan. 

It is after his elaborate explanation of the true nature of 
humour that Asper reveals his program as presenter of the play. 
In reply to the remark of Cordatus that 

if an ideot 
Have but an apish or fantastic strain, 
It is his humour, 

Asper declares, — 

Well, I will scourge those apes, 
And to these courteous eyes oppose a mirror, 
As large as is the stage whereon we act; 
Where they shall see the time's deformity 
Anatomized in every nerve and sinew. 
With constant courage, and contempt of fear. 



152 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

How far the types of folly attacked in the play coincide with the 
types common in satire will be seen when the individual characters 
are discussed separately. Much the same pictures are drawn by 
satirist after satirist. 

As a scourger Asper shows the harsh impatience with evil and 
the bold defiance of evil-doers that make him the typical satirist 
of the age. His defence of the satirist's uncompromising sharp- 
ness which opens the induction is taken from Juvenal (Satire I), 
hut it echoes the satiric spirit of Marston and Middleton^ and even 
their impassioned language, more perhaps than it does Juvenal's. 
Marston had anticipated Jonson in the use of this satire from 
Juvenal, adopting its mood and some of its ideas for the second 
satire of his Scourge of Villainy. Marston's satire is, of course, 
much fuller than Asper's speech, but it is interesting to compare 
the tone of the two. The parallels scarcely illustrate what is evi- 
dent enough in a comparison of Asper with the composite satirist 
of the age — Jonson's finer literary gift, which he shows especially 
in avoiding the inconsistencies and in toning down the absurdities- 
of his predecessors. Tlius Jonson says : 

Who is so patient of this impious world, 
That he can check his spirit, or rein his tongue? 
Or who hath such a dead vmfeeling sense. 
That heaven's horrid thunders cannot waive? 



Who can behold such prodigies as these, 
And have his lips sealed up? Not I. 

The following lines from the satire of Marston illustrate his use 
of these ideas : 

Preach not the Stoic's patience to me; 
I hate no man, but men's impiety. 
My soul is vex'd; what power will resist, 
Or dares to stop a sharp-fang'd satirist? 
Who'll cool my rage? . . . 



What icy Saturnist, what northern pate. 
But such gross lewdness would exasperate? 

damn'd! 
Who would not shake a satire's knotty rod. 
When to defile the^ sacred seat of God 
Is but accounted gentlemen's disport? 



Every Man out of his Humour 153 

O what dry brain melts not sharp mustard rhyme, 
To purge the snottery of onr slimy time ! 
Hence, idle "Cave" . . . 



Who can abstain? What modest brain can hold. 
But he must make his shame-faced muse a scold? 

Marston's "Hence, irlle 'Cave/ " and the repeated cautions of 
Cordatus against Asper's too great boldness^ bring out another 
characteristic of the satirist, his declared recklessness of conse- 
quences, and his fearlessness of those whom he might offend. It 
was common with the satirists to defy the ill will of those whose 
folly they exposed.^ The mood is found in the author's prologue 
to Micro-Ci/nicon, a work which was notorious by June 1, 1599, 
and which is often suggestive of Asper's type of satirist. Usually, 
however, the reader or hearer was also reminded aptly that to cry 
out was to betray oneself as hurt. Asper's medicine, he several 
times declares, is for the sick. Hall puts the matter very suc- 
cinctly in the postscript to his satires: "A7-t thou guilty? Com- 
plain not, thou art not wronged. Art thou guiltless? Complain 
not, thou art not touched." Almost without exception, moreover, 
the satirists were careful to defend themselves against the impu- 
tation that they attacked individuals. The wording may vary and 
even the matter, biit the principle holds for all. Bishop Hall's 
remark above is in connection with his protest against a personal 
interpretation of his attacks on folly. Marston's address "To him 
that hath perused me," at the end of The Scourge of Villainy, 
deals with the same ideas. Probably about the time of Jonson's 
play, Shakespeare put the protest in the mouth of the malcontent and 
satiric Jaques {As You Lil-e It, II, 7), and it is the more significant 

^In Nashe's Returne of Pasqtiill, the interlocutor Marforius several 
times urges on Pasquill the need of caution. Cf. Works, ed. McKerrow, 
Vol. I, pp. 82, 83. 

-With Asper's — 

I fear no mood stamped in a private brow, 
When I am pleased t' unmask a public vice — 

compare Marston's — 

I dread no bending of an angry brow. 

Or rage of fools that T shall" purchase now {Scourge of 
ViUaimj, Sat. X, 11. 5, 6). 

The connection is different, however. 



154 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

here because it is uncalled for.^ Jonson's fullest discussion of the 
matter in Every Man out is through Cordatus and Mitis at the 
end of Act 11.^ I could scarcely point to a better example of the 
set themes of satire than the reader will find who takes the trouble 
to compare the passages from these four men. Of similar tenor 
is the warning in the induction to Summer's Last WiJl and Tes- 
tament: "Moralizers, 3'ou that wrest a neuer meant meaning out 
of euery thing, applying all things to the present time, keepe your 
attention for the common Stage: for here are no quips in Char- 
acters for you to reade." The wording, too, is suggestive of Jon- 
son's complaint near the end of Act II : "Indeed there are a 
sort of these narrow-eyed decypherers, I confess, that will extort 
strange and abstruse meanings out of any subject, be it never so 
conspicuous and innocently delivered." 

But the satirist must be taken into account as literary man as 
well as scourger. Part of the material of the satirical school 

^Shakespeare's so-called gloomy period of tragedies and bitter comedies 
probably has no meaning so far as his personal experiences and mood are 
concerned. The influence that determined the tone of Shakespeare's plays 
during this period was undoubtedly the vogue of satire, though a real 
mood of disillusionment, melancholy, and bitterness in the age may have 
helped to make satire fashionable. The drama in general came under the 
influence of formal satire around the year 1600. With Shakespeare the 
ingenuous satire on word-mongery in the early Love's Lahow's Lost and 
Much Ado gave place about this period to such studies in the malcontent 
as Casca, Jaques, and finally Hamlet. Twelfth Night and to a greater 
extent The Merry Wives of Windsor are obviously influenced by the 
humour trend that was associated with satire. In Troilus and Cressida 
we find expressed the bitterer satiric spirit of Marston, who developed 
the malcontent. This mood of satiric pessimism reaches the extreme for 
Shakespeare in the tragedies. At the same time Jonson had turned from 
humour comedy to tragedy in ^ejanus and had closed the period with 
Volpone, a comedy witli the tone of tragedy, which echoes what is per- 
haps the age's darkest note of pessimism. Then the reaction against 
satire and tragedy set in, and the fashion in plays changed. Beaumont 
and Fletcher's type of play took the public fancy. Jonson shifted the 
emphasis of his work from satire to the more pleasing elements of plot, 
organization, liveliness, etc.. producing the farcical Silent Woman and 
finally the uproarious Bartholomew Fair. About the same time Shake- 
speare turned again to romance, but, as Mr. Thorndike has shown, instead 
of following his early manner in comedy, he adopted the newer conven- 
tions of the stage. 

"The Quarto closes with some lines by Macilente, omitted in the Folio, 
which recapitulate parts of the discussion in the induction. Macilente 
appeals for applause to those who 

are too wise to thinke themselues are taxt 
In any generall Figure, or too vertuous 
To need that wisdomes imputation. 



Every Man out of his Humour 155 

which dealt with literar}^ matters was naturally for the purpose of 
scourging follies, hut much of it expressed the satirist's attitude 
to his own work. Asper's utterances along this line show two 
opposing phases. On the one hand, he expresses a complete con- 
fidence in his art, and a desire for criticism of his work, a willing- 
ness to be censured by the judicious as he is ready to spend him- 
self for them. On the other hand, he declares his utter scorn for 
literary pretenders and witless critics. I have already spoken of 
the fact that the writers of Jonson's day felt no hesitancy in 
defending confidently their own work. Jonson's egoism in regard 
to his art is by no means unique, though it probably offends more 
because it seems more fundamental to the man's nature than in 
the case of others. Through Nashe's satires, especially those 
against Harvey, there runs a vein of defiant confidence that easily 
surpasses Jonson. Again, where Jonson challenges — 

Let envious censors, with their broadest eyes, 
Look through and through me — 

half a score of other writers like Hall, Marston, and Middleton 
could be pointed out who fling down the gauntlet in belligerent 
poems defying envj' or detraction. The literature before Jonson 
is also filled with scorn for the ignorant critic and for pretended 
poets and poets of other schools. Nashe in the prologue to Sum- 
mer's Last Will and Testament takes Jonson's blunt attitude to his 
critics : "Their censures we wey not, whose sences are not yet 
vnswadled." In most of these points, Marston represents the 
extreme before Jonson. For line of thought and for mood, the 
introductory section to his Scourge of Villainy is often an inter- 
esting forerunner of Asper's part. Marston opens with some 
defiant and self-confident stanzas in which he presents his "poesy" 
to Detraction. His next section is addressed In Lectores prorsus 
indignos, and his resentment that ignoramuses and coxcombs 
should be allowed to pass judgment on his work is like Jonson's 
indignation at the gallant "that has neither art nor brain" and 
yet by his presumptuous criticism of a play will infect a whole 
audience. Marston then turns from unworthy critics, and ad- 
dresses several stanzas to "diviner wits" — the "judicious friends" 
of Asper. The introduction closes with a prose section headed 
"To those that seem judicial Perusers," in which Marston, prob- 



156 



English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 



ably following Hall (prologue to Book III of the satires), protests 
that English satire should not be bound down by the convention 
of roughness and obscurity of language. The spirit of this section 
is paralleled in Jonson's discussion, through the chorus, of inno- 
vation in the laws of comedy. A few corresponding passages in 
the part of Asper and the works of Marston, especially the intro- 
duction to The Scourge of Villainy, are added to illustrate the 
relation between the two men. 



Jonson 

Yet here mistake me not, jvidicious 

friends ; 
I do not this, to beg your patience. 
Or servilely to fawn on your ap- 
plause, 
Like some dry brain, despairing in 

his merit. 
Let me be censured by the austerest 

brow, 
Where I want art or judgment, tax 

me freely : 
Let envious censors, with their 

broadest eyes, 
Look through and through me, I 

pursue no favour; 
Only vouchsafe me your attentions, 
And I will give you music worth 

your ears. 
0, how I hate the monstrousness of 

time. 
Where every servile imitating spirit, 
Plagued with an itching leprosy of 

wit. 
In a mere halting fury, strives to 

fling 
His ulcerous body in the Thespian 

spring, 
And straight leaps forth a poet! 

And I will mix with you in industry 
To please: but whom? attentive 

auditors. 
Such as will join their profit with 

their pleasure. 



Marston 

Envy's abhorred child. Detraction, 
I here expose, to thy all-tainting 
breath, 
The issue of my brain: snarl, rail, 

bark, bite. 
Know that my spirit scorns De- 
traction's spite. 

Know that the Genius, which at- 
tendeth on 

And guides my powers intollectTial, 

Holds in all vile repute Detraction; 

My sovil an essence metaphysical. 
That in the basest sort scorns 

critics' rage 
Because he knows his sacred par- 
entage ( Scourge of Villainy, 
"To Detraction," etc. ) . 

age, when every Scriveners boy 

shall dippe 
Profaning quills into Thessaliaes 

spring {Eisiriomastix. Ill, 11. 

197 f. Assigned to Marston). 

1. But, ye diviner wits, celestial 

souls. 
Whose free-born minds no kennel- 
thought controlls. 
Ye sacred spirits, Maia's eldest 
sons — 

2. Ye substance of the shadows of 

our age. 



Every Man out of his Humour 157 

And come to feed their understand- In whom all graces link in mar- 

ing parts : riage, 

For these I'll prodigally spend my- To you how cheerfully my poem 

self, runs ! 
And speak away my spirit into air; 

For these I'll melt my brain into 3. True-judging eyes, quick-sighted 

invention, censurers, 

Coin new conceits, and hang my Heaven's best beauties, wisdom's 

richest words treasurers, 

As polished jewels in their bounte- how my love embraceth your 

ous ears. great worth ! ( Scourge of Vil- 
lainy, In Lectores, etc., 
11. 81 ff.). 

I ma}^ repeat here that to my mind the hostility between Jonson 
and Marston may often have been overstressed. The connection 
of the two men which resulted in the literary partnership of East- 
ward Hoe probably began early. Jonson, Chapman, and Marston 
shared very similar impulses and carried on very similar studies, 
perhaps exchanging ideas and ideals in social intercourse. Cer- 
tainly both Marston and Chapman seem to have given Jonson sug- 
gestions for Every Man out. Jonson and Marston, however, were 
just the men to quarrel frequently, in spite of all bonds of fellow- 
ship. Jonson's statement to Drummond that he had many quar- 
rels with Marston seems to me out of keeping with a long continued 
enmity between the two men; it suggests, rather, constant inter- 
course. Marston's dedication of The Malcontent to Jonson and 
the collaboration of the two in Eastward Hoe after Poetaster and 
Satiromastix were written indicate that at least they were as ready 
for reconciliation as for wrath. 

With regard to the part of Cordatus and Mitis in this enveloping 
machinery, its art is that of the dialogue so popular in the didactic 
literature of the sixteenth century and already utilized in The Case 
is Altered for Valentine's discussion of the stage, as it was later 
utilized in the Apologetical Dialogue of Poetaster. Cordatus and 
Mitis serve as prompters for Asper, and, after he leaves the stage, 
Mitis plays the same role for Cordatus in setting forth Jonson's 
dramatic purposes. The interlocutor is, of course, a mere figure- 
head. He serves to pave the way by suggesting a new idea or an 
objection and so furnishing a topic, but he never really offers a 
strong debate. The dialogues of Plato, Lucian, Cicero, and 
the Latin satirists may have rendered this form of literature 



158 English Elements in, Jonson's Early Comedy 

popular in the Eenaissance, but, as T have already said, the vogue 
was extensive in England before Jonson's time. Many of the crit- 
ical utterances of Cordatus and Mitis are likewse to be traced in 
earlier Eenaissance literature. Indeed, one is amazed at the 
degree to which Jonson conforms in the pettiest details to the 
academic rules that were gradually worked out in the Eenaissance. 
Much of this body of doctrine can be traced to classic sovirces and 
to Italian interpretation of those sources, so that it is difficult to 
disentangle the English elements. I judge, however, that there 
were some decidedly independent trends in English literature. 
They often concerned very petty points, but even the petty point 
became fixed. A certain conventionality in the satire on Daniel 
comes from the use of Daniel as the stock example of the violation 
of principles that were upheld by the most orthodox. In different 
connections I have already touched upon a number of the points 
discussed by Cordatus and Mitis, especially the claim for inde- 
pendence in the form of comedy and for a certain freedom in 
adapting its rules. They also apply Jonson's theory of humour, 
which is first definitely stated in this play. Their discussion of 
what comedy should be — at the end of III, 1 — repeats the ideas 
of the prologue to Every Man in. For these ideas Jonson may 
have drawn upon Whetstone, Sidney, the author of A Warning for 
Fair Women, and various others of his predecessors. Other details 
of Jonson's theory of comedy are taken up by the chorus, also, but 
usually merely by way of explaining the problems of the play or of 
applying the general rules given by the critical writers of the time. 
Among the characters in what is properly the play, Macilente is 
easily the most important from tlie point of view of structure. He 
is the intriguer of the play and stands in opposition to all the 
other characters, observing their humours and plotting to bring 
about their overthrow. But, aside from his function in the plot, 
his dual nature makes him a complex character. He hates all 
follies with a justifiable hatred, and yet at the time of the play he 
has given away to the humour of envy.^ It is envy that makes 
him a malicious intriguer, and this accounts for the care with 
which the Chorus explains his humour (I, 1, p. 79). As a figure 

^His envy is spoken of a number of times. Cf. the character sketch 
prefixed to'the play; I. 1, pp. 76, 78, and 79; IV, 1, p. 112; IV, 3, p. 112; 
V, 1, p. 126; epilogue, p. 140. 



Every Man out of his Humour 159 

of envy, he connects clearly with the allegorical character of Envy 
in the Seven Deadly Sins. But he is, in addition, a scholar and 
given to reflection. In this role his envy takes the form of mal- 
content, so that he becomes one of the very earliest studies of the 
humour of malcontent, which was soon to attract so much atten- 
tion in the drama. 

In the characterization of Macilente as Envy, Jonson has fol- 
lowed pretty closely the conventional traits of the abstraction. 
The description of Envy in Passus V of Piers the Plowman gives 
an early example: 

So loked he with lene chekes • lourynge foule. 

His body was to-bolle for wratthe • that he bote his lippes, 
And wryngynge he yede with the fiste • to wreke hym-self he thoughte 
With werkes or with wordes • whan he seighe his tyme. 
Eche a worde that he warpe ■ was of an Addres tonge, 
Of chydynge and of chalangynge • was his chief lyflode, 
With bakbitynge and bismer. . . . 



I wolde be gladder, bi god • that gybbe had mesehaunce, 
Than thoughe I had this woke ywonne • a weye of essex chese. 
I haue a neighbore neyghe me • I haue ennuyed hym ofte, 

His grace and his good happes ■ greueth me ful sore. 
Bitwene many and many • I make debate ofte, 

Awey fro the auter thanne • turne I myn eyghen. 
And biholde how Eleyne • hath a newe cote; 
I wisshe thanne it were myne • and al the webbe after. 

And of mennes lesynge I laughe • that liketh myn herte; 

For who-so hath more than I • that angreth me sore. 
And thus I lyue louelees • lyke a hither dogge. 
That al my body bolneth • for bitter of my galle. 

I myglite noughte eet many yeres • as a man oughte, etc. 

Almost all of these details fit Macilente. Leanness is one of the 
most common characteristics of Envy.^ Macilente means lean, 
and the leanness of the character is frequently referred to in the 
play.^ Macilente also gives vent to his spleen in both works and 

Tf. Ship of Fools, ed. Jamieson, Vol. I, p. 254; Endimion, Y, 1; 
Faerie Queene, V, xii, 29. 

^Cf. I, 1. p. 76; IV, 2, p. 112; IV. 4. p, 115; V, 4, pp. 130 and 132; 
V. 7, p. 139. 



160 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

words^ and his malice is vengeful. The sharpness of his tongue 
leads Carlo to say of him, "He carries oil and fire in his pen, will 
scald where it drops" (I, 1, p. 76). Twice in IV, 1, Fallace 
accuses him of backbiting. Every fresh instance of worldly pros- 
perity calls forth a tirade from him, and the overthrow or mishap 
of each separate fool is met with rejoicing. The finery of the cox- 
combs, like Eleyne's "newe cote," several times rouses his resent- 
ment. He takes special delight, also, in "setting debate" (IV, 3, 
p. 112) between Deliro and Fallace, between Carlo and Puntar- 
volo, between Shift and Puntaiwolo, etc. Even the fact that Envy 
can not eat is suggested in Jonson's character. Wlien Macilente 
speaks contemptuously of Carlo's fondness for pork. Carlo replies 
(V, 4, p. 132) : "If thou wouldst farce thy lean ribs with it too, 
they would not, like ragged laths, rub out so many doublets as 
they do; but thou know'st not a good dish, thou." 

The passage from Piers the Plovjman is only suggestive of how 
far back the characterization of Macilente may be traced and how 
thoroughly conventional is the groundwork of the treatment. Par- 
allels for Macilente as a study of Envy are to be found all the way 
through English literature, for the conventional traits of the ab- 
straction remained pretty well fixed. Spenser has two treatments 
of Env}^ in The Faerie Queene (I, iv, 30-32, and V, xii, 29-32), 
which, with decided differences in detail, portray the same gen- 
eral disposition that we find in Envy of Piers the Ploivman and 
in Macilente. In Book I Spenser says of Envy: 

But inwardly he chawed his owne maw 

At neighbours welth, that made him ever sad. 



Still as he rode he gnasht his teeth to see 
Those heapes of gold with griple Covetyse. 

In Book V the female Envy is described as eating her own gall 
through sheer vexation at goodness. Spenser continues : 

For, when she wanteth other thing to eat, 

She feedes on her owne maw unnaturall, 

And of her owne foule entrayles makes her meat. 

In comparing his own lot with Sordido's, Macilente complains 
(I, 1, p. 78),^ 

Meantime he surfeits in prosperity, 

And thou, in envy of him, gnaw'st thyself; 



Every Man out of his Humour 161 

and the thought that an arrant gull like Sogliardo should have 
"land, houses, and lordships," wrings from Macilente the exclama- 
tion, "0, I could eat my entrails." The gnashing of the teeth is 
found in a quotation which Cordatus applies to Macilente (I, 1, 
p. 72) : 

Invidus suspirat, gemit, incutitque denies. 

For Macilente, especially in his malicious activity as the in- 
triguer of a drama, the most interesting of the many treatments 
of Envy is perhaps to be found in Medwell's Nature. This play 
represents a dramatization of the abstract type which, its period 
considered, is no mean forerunner of Macilente. Nature furnishes 
nothing for Jonson's plot, but it presents in concrete form the 
malice of Envy as an intriguer and the same hostility between 
Envy and Pride which exists between Macilente and Brisk, Jon- 
son's figure of pride. 

In cam Pryde garnyshed as yt had be 

One of the ryall blode 

It greued me to se hym so well be sene 

But I liaue abated hys corage clene (Pt. II, 11. 912-915). 

Whan I se an other man aryse 

Or fare better than I 

Than must I chafe and fret for yre 

and ymagyn wyth all my desyre 

To dystroy hym vtterly (Pt. II, 11. 933-937 ).i 

In Medwell's play, Envy, like Macilente, shows his spitefulness 
toward all, and lays a special trap for Pride, as Macilente does 
for Brisk. Envy complains that Bodily Lust is furnished with 
better clothes than his, while Macilente, meanly clad, chafes at 
the finery of less worthy men. Pride is exactly the type of gal- 
lant seen in Brisk. He is always in advance of Man in fashion 
as Brisk is of Fungoso, and Fungoso's mad efi^orts to keep up 
with the style as set by Brisk recall the verdict that Pride passes 
on Man's array (Pt. I, 11. 1025 ff.) : 

It ys not the fassyon that goth now a day 
For now there ys a new guyse. 

^Cf. also the character sketch in 11. 1187 if. Here, as in Piers the Plow- 
man, Envy is described as a backbiter and detractor. This phase of 
Envy Jonson has not stressed in Macilente, thouglv I have mentioned the 
fact that Fallace accuses him of backbiting. Spenser distinguishes Envy 
and Detraction {F. Q., V, xii). 



162 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

It ys now .ii. dayes a gon 

Syth that men bygan thys fassyon 

And euery knaue had yt anon 

Therfore at thys season 

There ys no man that setteth thereby 

If he loue hys own honesty. 

Like Brisk, Pride mortgages his land for fine clothes. He is also 
waited on by his page Garcio, as Brisk is by Cinedo. In all these 
points, however, both Pride and Brisk are doubtless merely 
typical gallants. 

Though Macilente's tirades usually arise from pure envy, there 
are touches of dissatisfaction with society and of scorn for men in 
general which tend to make his expressions of envy broaden at 
times into satirical reflection on life. He is thus a forerunner of 
the malcontent. Many trends of contemporary literature indicate 
the growing popularity of the general type. Morosus was known 
to the age, and the misanthrope Timon and the cynic Diogenes 
were favorite figures.^ A phrase in The Defence of Conny-catching 
applies aptly to Macilente : "No other humour left, but satirically 
with Diogenes, to snarle at all mens manners." Associated with 
malcontent was the melancholy which the age affected, as in the 
gulls of Every Man in.^ Those who come under the influence of 
Saturn are often portrayed as gloomy or pessimistic. Envy is 
conceived of as a kindred tj^'pe.^ The satirist's affected scorn of 

^For Diogenes see Lyly's Campaspe, Lodge's Diogenes in his Singularitie, 
The batynge of Dyogens (of. Com. Hist. Eng. Lit., Vol. IV, p. 583), etc. 
For Timon see Painter's Palace of Pleasure, I, No. 28, Plutarch's "Life 
of Antony," etc.; cf. also Ward's Hist. Eng. Dram. Lit., Vol. II, p. 178. 
References to the two, but especially to Diogenes, are very frequent in 
Elizabethan literature. Greene (Works. Vol. IX, p. 129) has the fol- 
lowing passage combining the two with Morosus: "Yet was he not 
Morosus, tyed to austerne humours, neither so cinicall as Diogenes, to 
mislike Alexanders royalty, nor such a Timonist, but hee would famil- 
iarly conuerse with his friends." 

-Cf. "melancholy malcontent" in Wily Beguiled, Hazlitt's Dodsley, Vol. 
IX, p. 268. 

^For the influence of Saturn see Greene's Planetomachia, Works, Vol. V, 
pp. 45 ff. ; Lyly's Woman in the Moon, I, 1 ; Rankins' Heaven Satyres, 
"Contra Saturnistam." Several of the terms used for this mood are 
combined in the following passage from The Cohler of Canterhurie, p. 108 
of the Shakespeare Society edition of Tarlton's Jests, etc. : "The enuious 
practises that solemne Saturnists ruminate . . . the sundrie schismes 
the melancholy michers do publish." Humour is also freqviently com- 
bined with these terms at an early period. The phrase "melancholy 
humour" occurs a number of times in Greene's Planetomachia, 1585; cf. 
also The Works of Greene, Vol. XI, p. 213, and The Works of Nashe,. 



Every Man out of his Humour 163 

men and manners is, of course, the mainspring of the malcontent, 
and he arose with satire. The word malcontent is met frequently 
in the literature at the end of the century. Nashe, for example, 
is fond of hoth malcontent and malevole. Pierce Penilesse begins 
with an account of the "malecontent humor" into which Pierce has 
fallen because, though a scholar and a poet, he is poor, whereas 
cobblers and other clowns are well-to-do. His raging against for- 
tune, his comparison of self with others, his envy and discontent, 
and even at times the wording, suggest Macilente very strongly. 
G-reene in Repentance {Worls, Vol. XII, p. 172) gives a short pic- 
ture of himself as a "Malcontent," in which there are conventional 
details. The characterization of the type was quickly taken up 
in verse satire. In ShiaJetJieia Guilpin twice deals with the mal- 
content (Epigram 52 and Satire V) ; and the second of the satires 
included with Pygmalion's Image contains a sketch of Bruto the 
traveler, clad in staid colors and exclaiming against the corrupt 
age, having learned only vices abroad, — an interesting first sketch 
by Marston of the qualities that are associated with many of the 
type. 

Kindred studies were also appearing in the drama of the period. 
Bohan in the induction of James IV, with his scorn for the social 
life around him, has already been compared with Macilente. 
Diogenes, a related type, appears in Lyly's Campaspe. Two of 
the characters in A Masque of the Knights of the Helmet described 
in Gesta Grayorum, are Envy and Malcontent. Dowsecer of An 
Humorous Day's Mirth, reflective and melancholj^, belongs to the 
same general type. Doubtless some of the cynics and villains of 
tragedy also contributed to the vogue. Especially in and around 
1599, the central year for satire, there are a number of plays re- 
flecting the malcontent spirit of Macilente, though usually the 
type presented is nearer a combination of Asper and Macilente, 
showing the tendency in both to reflection and cynicism, but vdth 
more of the righteousness of x4.sper and less of the envy of 
Macilente. In the second scene of Julius Caesar, the lean Casca 
is portrayed with touches of the malcontent, and his use of prose 

Vol. II, p. 262; compare "Inimorous melancholie" in Greene's Never too 
Late, Works, Vol. VIII, p. 127. Lodge uses humour three times in a 
short space for describing Envy or various phases of envy, Wits Miserie, 
pp. 57-59. Nashe's use of "malecontent humor" and Greene's use of the 
term for the moods of Diogenes and Morosus have also been quoted in 
this discussion. 



164 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

represents a convention of the type. Feliche of Antonio and 
Mellida and Malevole of The Malcontent followed Macilente prob- 
ably in quick succession. Possibly before Marston's contribution 
to the type, though probably later than Every Man out, appeared 
As You Like It, with its cynical and moralizing Jaques/ who 

desires (II, 7) 

liberty 
Withal, as large a charter as the wind, 
To blow on whom I please, 

and promises, 

Give me leave 
To speak my mind, and I will through and through 
Cleanse the foul body of th' infected world. 

The numerous treatments of cynical and soul-poisoned spirits 
that follow Asper-Macilente in all the drama of the age, including 
a number of Shakespeare's plays, have no value for Jonson's treat- 
ment of Macilente except as illustrating the growth of the type. 
In the literature preceding Every Man out there are, however, 
scattering expressions of the malcontent spirit which may have 
given suggestions to Jonson. 

A passage in Macilente's opening soliloquy may be compared 
with Shakespeare's twenty-ninth sonnet. 

Jonson Shakespeare 

When I view myself, When, in disgrace with fortune and 
Having before observed this man is men's eyes, 

great, I all alone beweep my outcast state. 

Mighty, and feared; that loved, and And trouble deaf Heaven with my 

highly favoured; bootless cries, 

A third thought wise and learned; And look upon myself, and curse 

a fourth rich, my fate, 

And therefore honoured; a fifth Wishing me like to one more rich 

rarely featured; in hope, 

A sixth admired for his nuptial for- Featured like him, like him with 

tunes: friends possess'd, 

When I see these, I say, and view Desiring this m^n's art, and that 

myself, man's scope, etc. 

I wish the organs of my sight were 

cracked; etc. (I, 1).^ 

'Like Macilente and others of the type, .Jaques has just returned from 
travel when the play opens. 

=Cf. Antonio and Mellida, Pt. I, III. 2. 11. 42 ff. for a passage probably 
imitated from Jonson but different in spirit. 



Every Man out of his Humour 165 

In Histriomastix, when Chrisoganus comes under the sway of 
Envy, he falls into a soliloquy that is just in Macilente's vein 
(IV, 11. 132-158). Simpson, in his edition of the play, has com- 
pared the soliloquy with Macilente's opening speech, declaring that 
"the general tone and purpose of the two speeches are identical, 
though Jonson's is infinitely the better." The passage from 
Histriomastix belongs to the portion of the play assigned to Mar- 
ston, and the part of Chrisoganus has commonly been accepted as 
a compliment to Jonson. I shall have occasion in a later chapter 
to revert to the matter of the relation between Histriomastix and 
the work of Jonson. 

In II, 2, 11. 11 ff., Macilente protests, 

I see no reason why that dog called Chance, 
Should fawn upon this fellow, more than me: 
I am a man, and I have limbs, flesh, blood. 
Bones, sinews, and a soul, as well as he: 
My parts are every way as good as his; 
If I said better, why, I did not lie. 

This is repeated from The Case is Altered (III, 1), where Angelo 
says: 

'Sblood, am not I a man. 

Have T not eyes that are as free to look, 

And blood to be inflamed as well as his? 

And when it is so, shall I not pursue 

Mine own love's longings, but prefer my friend's? 

Both passages seem inspired by Shylock's speech in The Merchant 
of Venice (III, 1): "Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew 
hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? . . . 
and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"'^ 

In the opening pages of Pierce Penilesse, which I have already 
spoken of as picturing Pierce's "malecontent humor," there is a 
passage that in ideas and turn of expression is somewhat similar 
to the one just quoted from Macilente : "Thereby I grew to con- 
sider how many base men that wanted those parts which I had, 
enioyed content at will, and had wealth at command : . . . 
and haue I more wit than all these (thought I to my selfe) ? am 
I better borne? am I better brought vp? yea, and better fauored? 

^Cf. The WitcJi of Edmonton, II, 1, for the same idea. 



166 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

and yet am I a begger?" With this passage compare also the 
speech in Every Man out (II, 2, p. 93) beginning, 

I fain would know of heaven now, why yond fool 
Should wear a suit of satin? he? that rook. 

Macilente's sharp and satiric vein is brought out in Carlo's 
characterization (I, 1, p. 76) : "He carries oil and fire in his 
pen, will scald where it drops : his spirit is like, powder, quick, 
violent; he'll blow a man up with a Jest: I fear him worse than 
a rotten wall does the cannon; shake an hour after at the report."^ 
Later (IV, 4, p. 115) Carlo calls him "the pure element of fire, all 
spirit, extraction," and adds that he "walks up and down like a 
charged musket." Guilpin had already used similar language in 
describing the satiric spirit of the age (SJcialetheia, Satyra prima) : 

How now my Muse .... 



Thys leaden-lieeled passion is to dull, 
To keepe pace with this Satyre-footed gull: 
This mad-cap world, this whirlygigging age: 
Thou must haiie words compact of fire & rage: 
Tearms of quick Camphire, & Salt-peeter phrases, 
As in a myne to blow vp the worlds graces, 
And blast her anticke apish complements. 

Clothes have no small share in setting the "seam-rent" Macilente 
apart from the more fortunate in his environment. In IT, 2, Brisk 
discourses to him at length on the virtues of rich apparel, and 
offers to take him to court provided he is suitably dressed. When 
Macilente, in new attire, finds himself in an apartment at court, 
he reflects on the sovereignty of clothes (III, 3, p. 108) : 

I was admiring mine own outside here, 
To think what privilege and palm it bears 
Here in the court! be a man ne'er so vile. 
In wit, in judgment, manners, or what else; 
If he can purchase but a silken cover, 
He shall not only pass, but pass regarded: 
Whereas let him be poor and meanly clad, 
Though ne'er so riclily parted, you shall have 
A fellow that knows nothing but his beef, 
Or how to rince his clammy guts in beer, 

^Cf. Poetaster, IV, 1, p. 239, where Tucca characterizes Horace. 



Every Man out of his Humour 167 

Will take him by the shoulders or the throat, 
And kick him down the stairs. Such is the state 
Of virtue in bad clothes! 

The same theme is proposed for discussion by the interlocutor 
Spudeus in Stubbes's Anatomy (p. 39 in Furnivall's edition) : 
^Txorgiouse attyre . . . maketh a man to be accepted and 
esteemed of in euery place; wheras otherwise they should be noth- 
ing lesse." Philoponus answers with a long disquisition on the 
reverence due to virtue, wisdom, etc., but not to attire, and often 
expresses Jonson's ideas; as, 

Vnder a simple cote many tymes lyeth hid great wisdom & knowledg; 
& cowtrarely, vnder braue attyre somtime is couered great ydiotacy and 
folly. . . . 

For surely, for my part, I will rather worshippe & accept of a pore 
man (in his clowtes & pore raggs) hauing the gifts and ornaments of 
the mind, than I will do him that roisteth & flaunteth daylie & howrely 
in his silks, veluets, satens, damasks, gold or siluer, what soeuer, without 
the induments of vertue, wherto only al reuerence is due (pp. 41, 42). 

One of the many examples that Stubbes cites is of a certain philos- 
opher, who, rejected at court when basely clad and reverently 
accepted in fine raiment, "kneled down, and ceased not to kisse 
his garme/its," saying, "That whiche my vertue and knowledge 
could not doe, my Apparell hath brought to passe" (p. 47).^ 
Thoroughly commonplace as are the ideas expressed by Stubbes, 
they show how Jonson is affected by the thought of contempo- 
raries. Stubbes is a perfect storehouse for illustrating Jonson's 
satire on the dress of the age, as may be seen from Furnivall's 
notes. Whether Jonson actually utilized Stubbes or not, the prom- 
inence of the Anatomy of Ahuses and its emphasis on evils' in dress 
doubtless had their influence on the almost Puritanical spirit 
which Jonson shows toward dress. 

In some respects, Macilente's immediate forerunner as an in- 
triguer is to be found in Lemot of An Humorous Day's Mirth. 
Lemot is not characterized either as envious or as malcontent, but 

'^Dr. Furnivall points out no source for the incident, which is doubtless 
classic. In Kerton's Mirror of Elans lyfe, 1576 (translated from the 
Latin of Lotharius), among several short chapters dealing -with dress, 
chapter 37 of the second book has the heading, "That more fauoure is 
shewed vnto a man for his apparell sake, than for his vertue." and here 
the story is told of the man who kissed his garments because they secured 
his admission to court. 



168 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

in roimding up all the Immonr types of the play, laying traps to 
overthrow them, taking malicious delight in their embarrassment, 
and showing slight sympathy in his dealings with them, he per- 
forms exactly the function of Macilente. The chief difference lies 
in the fact that Lemot, after having all the humour-ridden char- 
acters in his power, lets them off without complete exposure. As 
in Every Man out, the foundation for the resolution of the plot in 
An Humorous Day's Mirth is laid in an arrangement to meet at 
an ordinary and make merry. Though the meeting becomes the 
means of grouping the characters and bringing confusion to a 
number at once, the details in the two plays differ widely. Lemot's 
plan to expose the Puritan Florilla, however, is like Macilente's 
scheme for curing Deliro's humour of dotage. Labervele, the 
jealous husband of Chapman's play, dotes upon Florilla, as Deliro 
does upon Fallace, and surrounds her with ceremonious attentions. 
Lemot invites the wife to meet him at an ordinary, and she, though 
a Puritan with great pretensions to sanctity, is readily led into 
making the assignation.^ When she reaches the ordinary, Lemot 
secretly summons the husband, and she is threatened with expos- 
ure.^ Macilente uses the feast at the Mitre to have Brisk arrested, 
and then carries the news to Fallace, who rushes to Brisk's rescue. 
Meanwhile Macilente brings the doting husband to see for himself 
the perfidy of his wife. 

When Macilente has put all of the other characters out of their 
humours and is himself purged of the humour of envy, he appears 
again in Asper's mood, "though not his shape," as an epilogue. 
The same device is found in the old play of Timon, where Timon, 
after scourging all the sycophants from his presence, speaks the 
epilogue in a changed mood. Hart has pointed out the fact that 
Timon is closely related to Every Man out and the two succeeding 
plays of Jonson {The Worlcs of Ben Jonson, Vol. I, pp. xliii ff.), and 
has cited a number of parallels to Jonson's work, though by no means 
all. His conclusion is that Timon preceded the humour plays, in 

^Lemot wins Florilla by tricking her husband with a proposal to court 
her in his presence as a test of her constancy. A kindred motive Jonson 
uses in The Devil is an Ass, but he has made the incident conform rather 
closely to a story of the Decameron (III, 5) that may be the source also 
of Chapman's device. 

-A device of the same sort is used to entangle two of the men at the 
ordinary and put them in a bad light with their wives, so that the 
motive is tripled. The men, however, are guiltless. 



Every Man out of his Humour 



169 



which ease we must consider it among the most important of Jon- 
son's sources. The matter is uncertain, but the parallels were 
worth pointing out if only to show the immediate influence of 
Jonson. The parallel between the close of the two plays is not 
suggested by Hart. The Quarto, which I quote, is nearer Timon 
than is the Folio. 

Macilente Timon 

Why, here's a change: Now is my I now am left alone: this rascall 

soule at peace, route 

I am as empty of all Eniiie now, Hath left my side. What's this? 
As they of merit to be enuied at, I feele throughout 

My Humor (like a flame) no longer A sodeine change: my fury doth 

lasts abate. 

Than it hath stufl'e to feed it. . . . My hearte growes milde, and laies 

aside its hate. 

I am so farre from malicing their He not affecte newe titles in my 

states, minde, 

That I begin to pittie them. ... Or yet bee call'd the hater of man- 

kinde: 

And now with Aspers tongue Timon doffs Timon, and with bended 
(though not his shape) knee 

Thus craues a fauour. — if our com- 

. . . [wel entreat edie 

The happier spirits in this faire- And merry scene deserue a plaudite 

fild Globe, Let louing hands, loude sounding in 

the ayre, 

That with their bounteous Hands Cause Timon to the citty to re- 

thev would confirme paire.^ 

This, as their pleasures Paftent. 



^In regard to the date of Timon Hart says: "Since the parallels extend 
from the Humour-plays to Poetaster, it [Timon] must have preceded 
them all; for if it was intended to mock Ben it would have to succeed 
them all, and it could not be devoid of allusions to the 'hvimours,' or to 
the Satiromastix battle." It seems indeed strange that a play which 
is so close to Jonson's work should not use humour. On the other hand, 
various dramatists took up Jonson's vein immediately, often with 
scarcely a mention of humour. Gull is likely to occur, but some fol- 
lowers of Jonson pay little attention to either. The borrowing often 
consisted not even in the humour point of view, but in material for 
satire on the foolish types of London. Dekker in Patient Grissell, Mar- 
ston, the author of the Parnassus plays, and others seem to have imi- 
tated Jonson's plays almost immediately and yet to have been but slightly 
influenced by the word humour. The crudeness of Timon might argue 
for a date before Jonson, except for the fact that other plays which 
apparently follow Jonson's — Sir Gyles Goosecappe, for example — are almost 
as crude. Moreover, the author of the academic Timon was probably an 
amateur. Dyce put the play in 1600. If it was as late as this, it prob- 



170 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

As near as the parasite in Carlo Buffone brings him to the rogue 
class, his function in the play places him with Macilente rather 
than with Shift. A glutton, whoremonger, coward, sycophant, 
and parasite, he is still stressed chiefly for his power of abuse and 
railing. Macilente has real courage and some respect for self. 
He is called a backbiter by one of his victims, but, in spite of his 
malice, he is not pictured as a liar, a hypocrite, or a sycophant. 
Detraction and secret malice are represented in Carlo, who is 
strictly the backbiter. As an abstraction he is called Mischief and 
Wickedness (II, 1, p. 83).^ As a scourger, the "Grand Scourge,'^ 
or Second Untruss of the time" (II, 1, p. 86), he represents a 
third type of the satirical spirit abroad, the 

open-throated, black-mouthed cur, 
That bites at all, but eats on those that feed him (I, 1, p. 76). 

He is a buffoon, a low jester, who confounds with similes, and his 
satire is of the basest sort, mere detraction, not at all to be com- 
pared with the noble rage of Asper or the curable envy of the poor 
scholar Macilente.^ The mouth of Detraction must be sealed by 
folly itself. Carlo's ofEce in the play thus associates him with 

ably came after Poetaster. Cf. pp. 200 f. infra for further discussion of 
the date. Jonson could hardly have had any share in Timon. It does not 
suggest his style. 

^So Anaides of Cynthia's Revels, who resembles Carlo closely, is twice 
called Mischief in IV, 1 (pp. 174 and 179). In III, 2 (p. 166) he is 
addressed as Detraction. 

-The reference in "Grand Scourge" has frequently been taken as a hit 
at Marston. It may be, though I believe that Jonson has borrowed from 
Marston in this play. Even if the expression refers to Marston's Scourge 
of Villainy, it does not mean that Carlo is intended for Marston. "Grand 
Scourge," however, may have no reference to Marston's work in particular, 
for whip, scourge, and mastix were favorite words expressing the attitude 
of satire. Cf. Asper's "whip of steel." and "I will scourge these apes." 
Guilpin {Skialetheia, "Satyre Preludium") iises scourge and also Ches- 
ter^the name of the man who was the original of Carlo — as synonyms 
for the spirit of satire. Nashe refers to a "ballet of vntrusse," appar- 
ently by Munday, in such a way as to indicate that it was scurrilous 
enough for the term untruss to be applied aptly to Carlo as a "prophane 
jester." Cf. Works of Nashe, Vol. V, p. 19.5; Vol. I, p. 159; and Vol. IV, 
p. 90. See also Hart. 10 W. and Q.. Vol. I, pp. 381-383. The title Chil- 
dren of the Chapel Stript and Whipt, 1569, combines the two ideas as 
Jonson does. 

^Aristotle attempts a similar three-fold classification: "Righteous in- 
dignation, again, is a mean state between envy and malice. ... A 
person wdio is righteously indignant is pained at the prosperity of the 
undeserving; but the envious person goes further and is pained at any- 
body's prosperity, and the malicious person is so far from being pained 



Every Man out of his Humour 171 

Macilente, whom he understands, admires, and fears; and he 
becomes a second to Macilente in the intrigues of the play. 
Macilente, however, utilizes him chiefly to bring about his down- 
fall. 

Spenser in The Faerie Queene (V, xii) associates Envy with 
Detraction, who dwells near Envy. Detraction, however, is femi- 
nine, and not suggestive of Carlo. In Wits Miserie, Lodge has 
a number of characters that embody traits of Carlo, but none that 
shows a very close approach to his assemblage of qualities. Of 
Derision, for instance, it is said : 

Marry he will run ouer all his varietie of filthie faces, till he light 
on yours: beat ouer all the antique conceits he hath gathered, til he 
second your defect, and neuer leaue to deride you, till he fall drunke 
in a Tauerne while some grow sicke with laughing at him, or consult with 
Rash Judgement how to delude others, that at the length hee prooueth 
deformity himself (Hunterian Club, p. 10). 

"Scan dale and Detraction" is described as a skulking villain and 
malcontent. 

In beleife he is an Atheist . . . hating his countrie wherein hee 
was bred, his gratious Prince vnder whom he liueth, those graue coun- 
sailors vnder whom the state is directed, not for default either in 
gouernement, or policy, but of m6ere innated and corrupt villanie; and 
vaine desire of Innouation (p. 17). 

This last quotation may be compared with a description of Carlo 
at the end of the induction giving him a characteristic of which 
we see nothing in the play itself : "He will prefer all countries 
before his native, and thinks he can never sufficiently, or with 
admiration enough, deliver his affectionate conceit of foreign 
atheistical policies.'"' 

In The Castle of Perseverance there is a character Detraccio, 
or Backbiter, who resembles Carlo in a number of points (11. 651- 
702). He is a liar and a tutor in evil; he plots against duke and 
clown alike; he will "speke fayre be-forn, & fowle be-hynde." It 

that he actually rejoices at misfortunes" {Ethics, trans. Welldon, pp. 
52, 53 ) . Aristotle's treatment could not have given Jonson more than 
the fundamental idea of his three-fold division of scourgers, but it is 
possible that Jonson had some other source developed from Aristotle. 
Welldon calls attention to the weakness of Aristotle's distinction between 
envy and malice (p. xxi). Jonson found much more definite distinctions 
in English literature. Cf. p. 172 infra for the filling in from Aristotle 
of the abstraction represented in Carlo. 



172 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

is through him that the Seven Deadly Sins, including Envy, are 
introduced to Man. Cloaked Collusion of Skelton's Magnificence, 
who declares himself of one mind with Division, Dissension, and 
Derision, is another abstraction of the early drama that is related 
to Carlo. In lines 689 If. he gives a character sketch of himself 
which corresponds in many respects to the characterization of 
Carlo as intriguer, backbiter, dissembler, and flatterer. In par- 
ticular. Carlo is described as "one whose company is desired of 
all men, but beloved of none," and Cloaked Collusion says of 
himself : 

And thovigh I be so odyous a geste, 

And euery man gladly my company wolde refuse, 

In faythe, yet am I occupyed with the best; 
Full fewe that can themselfe of me excuse. 

Outside of the abstraction Derision, there are to be found dis- 
tinct treatments of jesting alone as a folly which prepare for 
Carlo as a jester. In Aristotle's Ethics the Buffoon is described 
as follows (pp. 130, 131) : 

Now they who exceed the proper limit in ridicule seem to be buffoons 
and vulgar people, as their heart is set upon exciting jidicule at any 
cost, and they aim rather at raising a laugh than at using decorous 
language and not giving pain to their butt. . . . There will be some 
kinds of jest then that he [the good jester]- will not make, for mockery 
is a species of reviling, and there are some kinds of reviling which legis- 
lators prohibit; they ought perhaps to have prohibited certain kinds of 
jesting as well. . . . But the buffoon is the slave of his own sense 
of humour; he will spare neither himself nor anybody else, if he can 
raise a laugh, and he will use such language as no person of refinement 
would use or sometimes even listen to. 

This classical idea of the distinction between gentlemanly and 
clownish wit is brought over into Eenaissance literature in Wil- 
son's Arte of Rhetorique (pp. 137-139). From the point of view 
of classic and Eenaissance culture, scurrilous jesting was obnoxious 
as inconsistent with the highest ideal of gentlemanly refinement, — 
an ideal that was stressed in Italian courtesy books and, for Eng- 
land, in the works of Elyot, Ascham, L^'ly, etc. Wilson empha- 
sizes the difference "betwixt a common iester, and a pleasant wise- 
man." Of jesting at the expense of persons, the type of jesting 
by which Carlo transforms men into deformity, Wilson says: 



Every Man out of his Humour 173 

For, he tliat exceedeth and telleth all : yea, more then is needful!, 
without all respect or consideration had : the same shalbe taken for a 
common iester, such as knowe not how to make an ende, when they once 
begin, being better acquainted with bible bable, then knowing the fruite 
of wisedomes lore. 

Witty sayings constitute Wilson's second division of "pleasaunt be- 
hauiour." Of word wit he continues : 

But euen as in reporting a tale, or counterfeiting a man, to much is 
euer naught: So scurrilitie or (to speake in olde plaine English) 
knauerie in iesting would not be vsed, where honestie is esteemed. Ther- 
fore, though there be some witte in a pretie deuised iest: yet we ought 
to take heede that we touche not those, whom we would be most loth 
to offende. And yet some had as leue lose their life, as not bestowe 
their conceiued iest, and oftentimes they haue as they desire.^ 

Carlo is described as a "public, scurrilous, and prophane jester; 
that . . . with absurd similes will transform any person into 
deformity" (p. 62) ; and Cordatus says of him in the induction, 
"He will sooner lose his soul than a jest, and profane even the 
most holy things, to excite laughter; no honourable or reverend 
personage whatsoever can come within the reach of his eye, but is 
turned into all manner of variety, by his adulterate similes" (p. 
71). Wilson's warning that it is "meet to auoyd . . . ale- 
house iesting" gives force to Jonson's characterization of Carlo as 
a public jester, one who prostitutes his wit at every tavern and 
ordinary (I, 1, p. 76).- 

It is not an accident that these passages from Wilson agree so 
well with Jonson's treatment of rude jesting. Criticism early took 
jesting into account. Cicero's De Oratore gave classic sanction 
for its study as a literary art, and for the Eenaissance Castiglione 
in portraying the ideal gentleman takes pains to deal with the 
matter of wit. Wilson, we have seen, discusses jesting as a part 
of his theory of rhetoric in the first really influential English 
rhetoric. Again, Sir Thomas More's ready wit made no small 
part of the charm which his personality held for the Eenaissance 

^Wilson's classification of jests and his conception of the "common 
jester" were probably drawn from Cicero's De Oratore. Book II, chap- 
ters Ivii flf. Cicero, however, does not seem so important for Jonson as 
does Aristotle or the Renaissance expression of Cicero's ideas in Wilson. 

^Cf. p. 61 supra for some phrases of Harvey's characterization of Nashe 
that are parallel to Jonson's sketch of Carlo. 



174 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

public, so that no life of More in that age was complete without 
its accounts of his happy jests. 

In the passages that I have quoted on jesting one commonplace 
especially indicates conventionality. Aristotle's test of refinement 
in wit is that the buffoon "will spare neither himself nor anybody 
else, if he can raise a laugh." According to Wilson, "some had 
as leue lose their life, as not bestowe their conceiued iest." Cor- 
datus says of Carlo that he "will sooner lose his soul than a jest," 
and Tucca in Poetaster (IV, 1, p. 239) says of Horace, "He will 
sooner lose his best friend than his least jest." It is a rather 
strange nemesis that the cultured Drummond, in summing up 
Jonson's character after the hitter's visit to Scotland, should have 
applied to him the same touchstone that Jonson applied to Carlo, 
and should have found him wanting. Jonson, Drummond says, — 
almost in the words that Jonson puts in the mouth of Tucca as 
a bit of slander against himself in the role of Horace, — was "given 
rather to losse a friend than a jest." It is probable that Drum- 
mond had the passage of Poeiuster in mind when he wrote. ^ 

Carlo is one of Jonson's most interesting studies, because, al- 
though Jonson was naturally led to express in him as a humour 
type an abstract principle or trait, there is very little doubt that 
the concrete Carlo was drawn to life from a notorious London 
character, Charles Chester. He thus furnishes evidence that the 
crafty Jonson had the gift of embodying personal satire in his 
studies of types, and embodying it so skilfully that it renders the 
character more concrete but not a whit less typical. Aubrey in 
his Brief Lives declares, on the authority of Dr. John Pell, that 
Carlo Buffone is taken from Chester, and that "one time at a 
taverne Sir W. R. beates him and scales up his mouth (i. e. his 
upper and neather beard) with hard wax." Collier identified 
Chester with Charles the Fryer of Chester in Nashe's Pierce Peni- 
lesse, and Hart has gathered and quoted five other contemporary 
references to Chester as a jester — three from Harington's works 
and two from Guilpin's Shialetheia — ^besides a reference in the 
Calendar of State Papers.^ The statement of Aubrey and the like- 

^ Jonson's passage was suggested by Horace; see p. 309 infra. 

^The Works of Ben Joivson, Vol. I, pp. xxxvi ff. Small, Stage-Quarrel, 
pp. 35 ff., had already mentioned some of these references, and had stressed 
the connection of Carlo and Chester. 



Every Man out of liis Humour 175 

ness of Carlo's character to that of Chester as revealed by these 
allusions to him leave no doubt that Jonson portrays Chester in 
Carlo's railing and in the sealing of his mouth by Puntarvolo at 
the Mitre.i 

Nashe's sketch (Works, Vol. 1, pp. 190, 191) is the fullest and 
the most valuable for the "absurd similes" that Jonson puts in 
the mouth of Carlo : 

There be those that get their lining al the yeere long, by nothing but 
rayling. 

Not farre from Chester, I knewe an odde foule mouthde knaue, called 
Charles the Fryer. . . . Noblemen he would liken to more vgly 
things than himself: some to After my hartie commendations, with a 
dash ouer the head: others, to guilded chines of beefe, or a shoomaker 
sweating, when he puis on a shoo: another to an old verse in Cato, Ad 
consilium ne accesseris, antequam voceris: another, to a Spanish Codpisse: 
another, that his face was not yet finisht, with such like innumerable 
absurd illusions : yea, what was he in the Court but he had a comparison 
in stead of a Capcase to put him in. Vpon a time, being chalenged at 
his owne weapon in a priuate Chamber, by a great personage (rayling, 
I meane), he so far outstript him in vilainous words, and ouerbandied him 
in bitter tearmes, that the name of sport could not perswade him patience, 
nor containe his furie in any degrees of ieast, but needs hee must wreake 
himselfe vppon him: neither would a common reuenge suffice him, his dis- 
pleasure was so infinite . . . wherefore he caused his men to take 
him, and brickt him vp in a narrow chimney, that was Neque maior 
neque minor corpore locato; where he fed him for fifteene dayes with 
bread and water through a hole, letting him sleep standing if he would, 
for lye or sit he could not, and then he let him out to see if he could 
learne to rule his tongue any better. 

It is a disparagement to those that haue any true sparke of Gentilitie, 
to be noted of the whole world so to delight in detracting, that they 
should keepe a venemous toothd Cur, and feed him with the crums that 
fall from their table, to do nothing but bite euery one by the shins that 
passe by. If they will needes be merry, let them haue a foole and not 
a knaue to disport them, and seeke some other to bestow their almes on, 
than such an impudent begger. 

Nashe gives this portrait as an example of "Wrath, a branch of 
Enuie," and his use of "rayling" and "detracting" connects the 
character with Detraction. In Carlo, as in the satire on Harvey's 

^In the dedication to Volpone Jonson asks: "Where have I been par- 
ticular? where personal? except to a mimic, cheater, bawd, or buffoon 
. . .?" This is an admission that personal satire enters into his work, 
and it was probably written with Carlo, for one, in mind. 



176 English Elements in Jonsons Early Comedy 

vocabulary, Jonson seems to have been following Nashe's trail. 
Man}^ of Nashe's phrases suggest Jonson's. Compare "get their 
lining . . . by nothing but rayling" with Jonson's "His 
religion is railing" (p. 62). The Fryer is given to "absurd illu- 
sions" and has a comparison to put each man in; Carlo "with 
absurd similes will transform any person into deformity" (p. 62). 
!N"ashe calls the Fryer a "foule mouthde knaue" and rebukes those 
who "keepe a venemous toothd Cur, and feed him . . . to do 
notliing but bite euery one by the shins that passe by" ; Macilente 
speaks of Carlo as a 

black-mouthed cur 
That bites at all, but eats on those that feed him (I, 1, p. 76). 

The "great personage" who is roused to so violent a revenge on the 
Fryer is represented in the knight Sir Puntarvolo, who in the end 
cures Carlo's humour. The jests that are worked out in Jonson's 
play may also be compared with those of Nashe's sketch.^ The 
Fryer's comparison of noblemen to "guilded chines of beefe" is 
like Carlo's comparison of Puntarvolo to "a shield^ of brawn at 
Shrove-tide ... or a dry pole of ling upon Easter-eve, that 
has furnished the table all Lent" (IV, 4, p. 116). The simile of 
the "Spanish Codpisse" is of a kind with Carlo's comparison of 
Puntarvolo's face to "a Dutch purse, with the mouth downward, 
his beard the tassels" (V, 4, p. 133). The Fryer's Jest of the 
face that "was not yet finisht" is in intent like a score of Carlo's 
similes that transform men into deformity. Of Sogliardo Carlo 
says, "He looks like a musty bottle new wickered, his head's the 
cork" (I, 1, p. 76) ; of Cinedo, "He looks like ... one of 
these motions in a great antique clock; he would shew well upon 
a haberdasher's stall, at a corner shop, rarely" (II, 1, p. 79) ; of 
Puntarvolo, "He looks like the sign of the George" (II, 1, p. 82). 
These passages may also be compared with part of two that Hart 
quotes as referring to Jonson's original for Carlo. Harington 
says parenthetically, "To use Charles Chester's jest, because you 

^Hart calls attention to the relationship between Carlo and Nashe's 
sketch of Charles the Fryer, though he does not go into details. In 10 
N. and Q., Vol. I, p. 383, he also points out a remark of Mayne in 
Jonsonus Viriius which would indicate that Jonson had a personal reason 
for being hostile to Chester. 

''The Quarto has "Chine." 



Every Man out of his Humour 177 

are faced like Platinaj" and Giiilpin says of a woman who paints 
her face. 

Or would not Chester sweare her downe that shee 
Lookt . . . 

. . . like a new sherifes gate-posts, whose old faces 
Are furbisht over to smoothe time's disgraces? 

Carlo's jests are much closer to those of Chester as given hy 
Nashe, Harington, and Guilpin than is Justified by their being 
merely of the same class, for while Jonson, who wished that "poets 
would leave to be promoters of other men's jests" (induction to 
CyntMa's Revels), does invent his own, it is interesting to note 
that the jests which he would not borrow still furnish close models 
for several specific types of jests that are repeated frequently in 
Carlo's mouth. To my mind, Jonson always seeks in literature 
the general principle, the fundamental idea, of a character, an 
episode, or even a jest, and strives to give it fresh clothing. In 
fact, his own notes to some of his work, The Masque of Queens, 
for instance, are a sufficient indication of his method of working. 
ISTashe's portrait of Chester naturally had an influence on Jonson, 
for it had already classified Chester as representing a type of evil. 
Jonson was not likely to take a character entirely from life. In 
his practice, the character must stand for a certain evil, must be 
almost an abstraction, and the real poet drew characters only as 
true to life as might be consistent with their conformity to a type. 

In characterizing Carlo as one that "will swill up more sack at 
a sitting than would make all the guard a posset" (p. 62), Jonson 
has given a special scene to his drinking. Carlo's manipulation 
of the cups is in the manner of a puppet-show, and probably illus- 
trates Jonson's early interest in such performances. At the same 
time, the scene burlesques the conventions of drinking bouts. 

Setting two cups before him. Carlo goes through the ceremony 
of pledging healths as he drinks from first one cup and then the 
other (V, 4) : 

1 Cup. Now, sir, here's to you; and I present you with so much of 
my love. 

2 Cup. I take it kindly from you, sir [drinks,] and will return you 
the like proportion. 

Then the first cup proposes the health of the "honourable countess, 
and the sweet lady that sat by her," and the second cup responds. 



178 English Elements in J orison's Early Comedy 

"I do vail to it with reverence." After that health has been dmnk 
and one to the "divine mistress" of the first cup, the second cup 
proposes : "^And now, sir, here is a replenished bowl, which I will 
reciprocally turn upon you, to the health of the Count Frugale;" 
and they pledge it upon their knees. A quarrel arises, the second 
cup exclaiming, "Nay, do me right, sir," and "Mine was fuller," 
and the whole scene ends in the giving of the lie and a threatened 
stabbing. 

Nashe in Pierce Penllesse says of excessive drinking (Worlds, Vol. 
1, pp. 205-207) : 

Now, he is no body that cannot drinke super nagulum, carouse the 
Hunters hoop, quaffe vpsey freze crosse, with healthes, gloues, munipes, 
frolickes, and a thousand such dominiering inuentions. He is reputed a 
pesaunt and a boore that wil not take his licour profoundly. And you 
shall heare a Caualier of the first feather . . . stand vppon termes 
with, Gods wounds, you dishonour me sir, you do me the disgrace if you 
do not pledge me as much as I drvmke to you: and, in the midst of his 
cups, stand vaunting his manhood ... we haue generall rules and 
iniunctions, as good as printed precepts, or Statutes set downe by Acte 
of Parliament, that goe from drunkard to drunkard; as still to keepe 
your first man, not to leaue any flockes in the bottome of the cup, to 
knock the glasse on your thvimbe when you haue done, etc. 

In Summer's Last Will and Testament, again, there is a drink- 
ing scene (Vol. Ill, pp. 264-269, 11. 962 ff.) that illustrates many 
of the details in the passage from Pierce Penilesse : 

Bacchus. ... A vous, moTisieur Winter, a frolick vpsy freese, 
crosse, ho, super nagulu. 

Winter. . . . For this time you must pardon me perforce. 
Bacchus. What, giue me the disgrace? 

Then Bacchus forces Summer to drink, on his knees, to the "health 
of Captaine Rinocerotry ," and insists that Summer shall "haue 
weight and measure" of wine. "Wee'le leaue no flocks be- 
hind vs, wliatsoeuer wee doe,"^ Bacchus declares as he departs. 

^A drinking song that is repeated several times runs: 

Mounsieur Mingo for quafhng doth surpasse. 
In Cuppe, in Canne, or glasse. 
God Bacchus, doe mee right, 
And dubbe mee knight Domingo. 

Cf. // Henry IV, V, 3; Return from Parnassus, Part I, 1. 1469; Pierce 
Penilesse, Works of Nashe. Vol. 1, p. 169. Could the lost play of Mingo 
have dealt with drinking scenes? 



Every Man out of his Humour 179 

After Bacchus leaves the scene with his merry crew, Summer re- 
flects : 

What a beastly thing is it, to bottle vp ale in a mans belly, when a 
man must set his guts on a gallon pot last, only to purchase the alehouse 
title of a hoone companion''. Carowse, pledge me and you dare: S'wounds, 
ile drinke with thee for all that euer thou art worth. It is euen as 2. 
men should striue who should run furthest into the sea for a wager. 

Collier has cited as illustrative of the passage just quoted from 
Pierce Penilesse, one from Eiche's Irish Hubhub showing that "the 
Institution in drinking of a Health, is full of ceremonie, and 
obserued by Tradition." Though Eiche's work is later than Jon- 
son's, it describes more exactly than Nashe does, the custom of 
drinking healths as Jonson put it on the stage : 

He that begins the Health, hath his prescribed orders: first vncouering 
his head, he takes a full cup in his hand, and setling his countenance 
with a graue aspect, he cranes for audience: silence being once obtained, 
hee begins to breath out the name, peraduenture, of some Honorable Per- 
sonage, . . . his Health is drunke to, and hee that pledgeth, must 
likewise of with his Cap, kisse his fingers, and bowing himselfe in signe 
of a reuerent acceptance; when the Leader sees his Follower thiis pre- 
pared, he soupes vp his broath, turnes the bottome of the Cuppe vpward, 
and in ostentation of his dexteritie, giues the cup a phylip, to make it 
cry Tynge. And thus the first Scene is acted. 

The cup being newly replenished to the breadth of a haire, he that is 
the pledger must now begin his part, and thus it goes round throughout 
the whole company, . . . till the Health hath had the full passage: 
which is no sooner ended, but another begins againe, and he drinkes a 
Health, to his Lady of little loorth, or peraduenture to his light heeVd 
mistris (Quoted from McKerrow's note. Works of Nashe, Vol. IV, p. 130). 

A part of Carlo's function throughout the early part of the play 
is to instruct the gull Sogliardo in conduct. Carlo's advice is 
largely drawn from the Familiar Colloquies of Erasmus, as Whalley 
and Gifford have pointed out. Sogliardo is advised to live in the 
city; to provide fine clothes at any cost; to play at cards and dice; 
to talk of kindred and allies ; to have forged letters from the great 
brought to him, and provide that those present shall know the con- 
tents while he pretends to be displeased; to keep richly clothed 
servants who shall steal for him; to render his creditors obsequious 
by not paying them; to secure a coat of arms; etc. All this is 
taken from- "The False Knight," practically the whole of the col- 
loquy being utilized by Jonson. In addition. Carlo advises 
Sogliardo to acquire peculiar oaths; ^t ordinaries to be melan- 



180 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

choly; at plays to be humorous and sit on the stage and flout (all 
of this in I, 1 ) ; to pretend to austerity and pride, and yet play the 
sycophant and backbite; and to be impudent and affected at ordi- 
naries, swearing and offering wagers (III, 1). Carlo also com- 
ments on the power of delicate diet to refine the wit, using city 
wives as an example. Almost all of these points are treated by 
the satirists of the time, and most of them are common. The 
oaths and melancholy appear in the gulls of Every Man in as well 
as in satire. Davies in Epigrams 3 and 28 satirizes the behavior 
of gallants on the stage; Nashe, Lodge, Davies, Guilpin, and 
others give sketches of the upstart v/ho poses as scornful and of 
the flatterer who backbites. Many of the principles laid down by 
Carlo, which belong to his function as a scoffer and railer and 
represent his ironic satire, are made concrete in the action of the 
characters, and will be taken up later. 

A second parasite in the play, though of an entirely different 
class from Carlo, is the "thread-bare shark" Shift, who haunts 
Paul's. Shift represents for Every Man out Jonson's interest in 
the coney-catcher. Like Brainworm, he plays the begging soldier, 
carries a sword, and boasts of his campaigns. He is more pre- 
tentious, however, affecting the standards of a gentleman, and, like 
Carlo, pressing into the company of would-be gallants. The name 
is an old one for rogues. The Fraternitye of Yacahondes, according 
to the title page, deals with '"'Cousoners and Shifters," and in The 
GroundworTie of Conny-catching (1592), shifter is a cant term for 
one class of coney-catchers.^ In the early drama. Shift appears 
as one of three rogues in Common Conditions, and Subtle Shift in 
Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes. There are also some early 
sketches in which characters are described as shifters, but, like 
many other sketches of their period, they lack that exactness of 
classification and that attention to particular details which distin- 
guishes Eenaissanee character delineation in England, especially 

^The story is told here (Rogues and Vagabonds of Shakspere's Youth, 
pp. 102, 103) of hoAv a shifter ingratiated himself into a company of 
clothiers at an inn, and cozened them of the money for their reckoning. 
According to tlie author of 'I'he Groundworke, the jest is falsely attribiited 
"to a man of excellent parts about London." As practically the same 
jest is attributed to Peele {Jests of Peele. ^liakespearc .Test-Books, Vol. 
II, pp. 296, 297 ) , we have here a pretty good indication that tlie Jests 
were in circulation early enough to influence Jonson's plays. Cf. p. 134 
supra. 



Every Man out of his Humour 181 

with the rise of satire. The shifter seems less fixed and developed 
than most of the early types taken np by Jonson. Certain more 
or less commonplace phases of Jonson's Shift are also illustrated 
in various sketches not connected with the name Shift, or Shifter. 
Fulwell in The Arte of Flatterie has several sketches showing 
the general characteristics of the type, though they are perhaps 
closer to Carlo than to Shift. In the fifth dialogue it is said of 
Pierce Pickthanke that "to picke thankes and profit at all mennes 
handes hee can frame himselfe to feede all men's humours," a 
characteristic common to Carlo and Shift and all the fraternity 
of those who live by their wits, preying upon others. In another 
sketch, after describing Drunken Dickon as a "saucye and mala- 
perte varlet, who useth very broad iesting," Fulwell continues : 
"And because hee noteth that wise men take sporte to see 
fooles in a rage, hee will counterfait himselfe to bee in a mad 
moode, when hee is nothing at all angry; — he is a common cosoner, 
and a subtle shifter." The counterfeit rage of Fulwell's character 
is worked out very fully by Jonson in III, 1, where Shift appears 
"expostulating with his rapier," and Carlo remarks, "Did you ever 
in your days observe better passion over a hilt?"^ The suggestion 
that he sell the rapier inmiediately sends Shift off into another 
feigned passion. In this same chapter of The Arte of Flatterie, 
Pierce describes "a proper man"^ in terms that often fit Shift : 

And now to thy properties, thy use is to counterfaite thy selfe, . . . 
and wilt not blush to place thyselfe in euery man's company, and taste 
of euery mans pot. And if thou perceiuest the company to bee delighted 
with thy ieastes, then art thou in thy ruflfe, but if they be so wise as to 
mislike of thy saucines, then thou hast this subtile shift. . . . Also 
thou canst prate like a pardoner, and for thy facility in lying, thou art 
worthy to weare a whetstone in thy hat insteede of a brouch.' 

The willingness to place oneself "in euery man's company, and 

^Puntarvolo's rejoinder, "Except . . . that the fellow were nothing 
but vapovir, I should think it impossible," is interesting for the use of 
the word vapour, wliich later, as in Bartholomew Fair, was often applied 
to similar performances of cozeners. 

-On Shift's first appearance Sogliardo admiringly calls him "a proper 
man" (III, 1, p. 102). The expression is of course common enough in 
this sense. At the same time, there is a chance that Jonson was slyly 
playing upon the meaning of the words in rogues' cant, a use probably 
illustrated in this quotation from Fulwell. 

^The quotations are from Corser's Collectanea, Part 6, pp. 389 ff. 



182 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

taste of euery man's pot" is common to all of Shift's class. Shift 
has recourse to Paul's in order to make acquaintances, and, being 
without a groat, is rejoiced to have Sogliardo take him to the ordi- 
nary. "He is of that admirable and happy memory, that he will 
salute one for an old acquaintance that he never saw in his life 
before" (p. 64) — a commonplace trick of the coney-catcher. Shift 
also, like "the proper man," has the faculty of infinite gab, and 
besides the tales of his campaigns, which belong to him as "one 
that never was a soldier, yet lives upon lendings," he "usurps 
upon cheats, quarrels, and robberies, which he never did, only to 
get him a name" (p. 64). He is Jonson's early study of the 
boastful liar. 

Suggestions of Shift come out in various sketches of Wits Mis- 
erie also : 

[Vainglory] appeareth in diuers shapes to men, applying himselfe to 
all natures and humors. . . 

In Fowls hee walketh like a gallant Courtier, where, if liee meet some 
rich chuffes worth the gulling, at euery word he speaketh, hee makes a 
mouse of an elephant, he telleth them of wonders done in Spaine by his 
ancestors: ... if any worthy exploit, rare stratageme, plausible 
pollieie, hath euer past his hearing, hee maketli it his owne by an oath 
where (poore asse as he is) were hee examined in his owne 
nature, his courage is boasting, his learning ignorance, his ability weak- 
nesse, and his end beggery: yet is his smooth tongue a fit bait to catch 
Gudgeons; and such as saile by the wind of his good fortune, become 
Cameleons like Alcibiades, feeding on the vanity of his tongue with the 
foolish credulity of their eares (pp. 3, 4). 

Though some of the omitted parts connect this sketch with Brisk 
or Amorphus rather than with Shift, the portion quoted describes 
Shift exactly. He is Cavalier Shift, Signior AVhiffe, or Squire 
Apple-John to fit the occasion. In Paul's he appears as the cava- 
lier, and after the manner of Lodge's sketch, succeeds in gulling 
Sogliardo by tales of his marvelous exploits. Another sketch of 
Wits Miserie showing traits of Shift is that of Adulation (p. 20) : 

He can . . . court a Harlot for [his friend] ... If he meet 
with a wealthy yong heire worth the clawing, Oh rare cries he, doe hee 
neuer so filthily. . . . This Damocles amongst the retinue caries 
alwaies the Tabacco Pipe, ... he hath an apt and pleasing dis- 
course, were it not too often sauced with Hiperboles and lies: and in his 



Every Man out of his Humour 183 

apparell he is courtly, for what foole would not be braue that may 
flourish with begging?^ 

Here are found Shift's function as bawd and as instructor in the 
art of taking tobacco. Under the character of Brocage Lodge 
again describes the haunter of Paul's who preys upon the foolish 
(p. 31)^ and again the treatment is suggestive of Shift. So 
Brawling Contention (p. 63) resembles Shift in a few details. 
Jonson's character was of course built upon the follies of contem- 
porary lifC;, but those same follies had already received literary 
treatment in sketches that exemplify Jonson's method of charac- 
terization. 

In The Returne of Pasquill, Pasquill, who is humorously called 
Caualiero, sets up a bill upon London Stone {\Yorlc,s of Nashe, 
Vol. I, p. 101) which in its tone of whimsical burlesque might 
have been the forerunner of Shift's two bills (III, 1). Shift's 
first bill, however, more nearly resembles a bill that Slipper of 
James IV, himself something of a shifter,- sticks up (I, 2, 
11. 453 if.): 

If any gentleman, spirituall or temperall, will entertaine out of his 
seruice a young stripling of the age of 30 yeares, that can sleep with 
the soundest, eate with the hungriest, work with the sickest, lye with the 
lowdest, face with the proudest, etc., that can wait in a gentlemans 
chamber when his maister is a myle of, keepe his stable when tis emptie, 
and his purse when tis full, and hath many qualities woorse then all 
these, let him write his name and goe his way, and attendance shall 
be giuen. 

Shift's first bill reads (III, 1, p. 98) : 

If there be any lady or gentlewoman of good carriage that is desirous 
to entertain to her private uses a young, straight, and upright gentleman, 
of the age of five or six and twenty at the most; who can . . . hide 
his face with her fan, if need require; or sit in the cold at the stairfoot 
for her, as well as another gentleman: let her subscribe her name and 
place, and diligent respect shall be given. 

Greene's burlesque turns on the vices of the would-be servant; 

'This passage and one from Wits Miserie qvioted later in connection 
with Amorphus are used by Prof. Penniman as illustrative of Jonson's 
method of characterization (introduction to Satiromastix and Poetaster) . 

-Cf. the discussion of shifters in 11. 756 ff. of James IV. 



184 EngUsh Elements in J orison's Early Comedy 

Joi) son's oil the vices of masters, though at the same time it is 
made to suggest the rascality of the servant.^ The phrases that 
are most nearly parallel in the two bills doubtless give us merely 
the usual formula of the bills posted by those seeking service. 

In the second bill Shift advertises for a gentleman who wishes 
"to know all the delicate sweet forms for the assumption" of 
tobacco, and other mysteries of smoking. Sogliardo comes under 
his tutorage, and in IV, 4, Carlo tells how Shift is training 
Sogliardo in "the patoun, the receipt reciprocal, and a number of 
other mysteries not yet extant." There are passages in ISTashe's 
work which seem to indicate that certain ceremonies were growing 
up at this time in connection with smoking, similar perhaps in 
spirit to the drinking customs that Jonson burlesques in Every 
Man out. In Haue with you to Saffron-walden, ISFashe says of 
Chute {Worl-s, Vol. Ill, p. 107) : 

For his Oratorship, it was such that I haue seene him non plus in 
giuing the cliarge at the creating | of a new Knight of Tobacco; though, 
to make amends since, he hath kneaded and daub'd vp a Commedie, called 
The transformation of the King of Trinidadoes two Daughters, Madame 
Panachcea and the Nymphe Tobacco; and, to approue his Heraldrie, 
scutchend out the honorable Amies of the smoakie Societie. 

It is a pity that Chute's "Commedie," if it ever existed, is not 
available to throw some light on this passage and on Jonson's 
satire. Trinidado is the favorite tobacco of Bobadill.- 

The function of Clove and Orange is merely to fill up the Paul's 
group and talk fustian.^ Cordatus says of Clove (III, 1, p. 97) : 
"He will sit you a whole afternoon sometimes in a liookseller's 
shop, reading the Greek, Italian, and Spanish, when he under- 
stands not a word of either; if he had the tongues to his suits, he 
were an excellent linguist." Lodge has a good deal of satire on 
this type of pretension. For instance, he says of Boasting (p. 9) : 
"In the Stationers shop he sits dailie, libing and flearing ouer 

^Collins refers to a scene of Greene's News both from Heaven and IJell 
as illustrating this custom of setting up bills, but he tells nothing of the 
nature of it. Cf. The Flays and Poems of Greene, Vol. II, p.' 352. 

^The Lieutenant Shift of Jonson's Epigram XII is only slightly similar 
to Shift. 

'With the character sketches that Jonson gives of the two, compare 
the sketches of Daw and La-Foole in The Silent Woman, I, 1. 



Every Man out of his Humour 185 

euery pamphlet with Ironieall leasts; yet heare him but talke ten 
lines, and you may score vp twentie absurdities."^ Hart (Works 
of Ben Jonson, p. xlv) traces the pair to Stilpo and Speusippus, 
"two lying philosophers" of Timon, who speak a nonsensical phil- 
osophical jargon. In Timon the tM^o represent academic satire on 
philosophical terms and syllogisms. Clove and Orange may have 
been suggested by them, but, except in the association of the pair 
and in the fact that they speak nonsense, there is little likeness. 
Clove's speech is a hodge-podge, not close enough to any particular 
jargon to represent similar satire, though many philosophical 
terms do enter it. Gifford points out a parallel use of nonsense 
in Eabelais. Jonson, however, had a still better parallel near at 
hand in certain passages of Nashe's Haue with you to Safron- 
walden (Vol. Ill, pp. 42 If.), where Nashe represents Harvey's 
speech as made up of just such nonsense. Both men are satiriz- 
ing the absurd vocabularies of the day, and several speeches put 
in Harvey's mouth have the movement and the conglomerate ab- 
surdity of Clove's fustian, though not the words. The particular 
words of Clove have been studied by Simpson and others, and 
traced in part to Marston's works. Orange expresses the opposite 
quality of foppery, paucity of vocabulary and the use of a single 
phrase for every occasion. A short scene in All's ^Yell (II, 2) 
is given to satire on the use of Clove's pet phrase, "0 Lord, sir," 
the clown maintaining that for the court it will serve as an answer 
to all questions. The same vacancy of mind is satirized by Guil- 
pin in a long epigram (No. 68) on Cains, who says, "Oh rare" to 
everything. 

So much evidence exists for the fact that the numerous follies 
and fads pilloried in the figure of Brisk represent current fashions 
of fashionable London that the study of analogous literary treat- 
ments may seem to be of little value in throwing light on the 
development of Jonson's satire. In the case of Jonson's rogues, 
we can feel more confident, for each Elizabethan treatise on rogues 
obviously borrows from those that precede it. To a less extent, 
the same thing must be true of the gallants also. In Jonson's 
work, Mathew is suggestive of Brisk and Brisk of Hedon. More 
nearly related, even, than Jonson's own characters are Brisk and 

^Other passages on Boasting and his brother Vainglory, who precedes 
him, are strongly suggestive of Sir John Daw. 



186 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

Gullio of The Betum from Parnassus, Part I ; and Emulo of 
Patient Grissell is akin to both. We must feel either that some 
individual was satirized excessively often ; or that men were becom- 
ing surprisingly similar in an age in which "singularity" was cul- 
tivated ; or that a certain t5^pe figure developed in literature around 
which were grouped a number of extreme fads that naturally 
varied very little at a given period. Undoubtedly the types grew 
up from observation of life, for the satire was probably directed 
against actual evils. Among the ultrafashionable gallants num- 
bers of fads in dress, conduct, and speech must have prevailed 
generally as fashions prevail now, though in most cases we can 
feel that the satire imparted a defensible comic exaggeration, 
which was often too extreme to allow reality in character drawing. 
But the grouping of characteristics, the comic emphasis, the estab- 
lished devices for presenting follies, the names indicative of types 
and fundamental abstractions are the most obvious indications of 
literary conventions. A type figure based on life began in the 
old abstraction of Pride in the moralities. It continued in prose 
satire, where in the figures of the upstart and ape kindred follies 
were attacked by such men as Greene and Nashe. Later, partic- 
ularly in verse satire, the figure became somewhat more specialized, 
and several types grew out of the old one. The gull is one of 
these special types. He is not very difl:erent from the upstart, 
but simply represents a narrower convention. The broader line of 
development was from the old abstraction of Pride to the preten- 
tious gallant or the court dandy. Brisk shows conventions of both 
gull and courtier. 

The fundamental gulP in Brisk is set forth by Macilente (IV, 
1, p. Ill) : 

[Courtiers] he counterfeits, 

But sets no sucli a siglitly carriage 

Upon their vanities, as they themselves; 

And therefore they despise him : for indeed 

He's like the zany to a tumbler, 

That tries tricks after him, to make men laugh. 

^Brisk is called a gull in II, 1, p. 82, and in IV, 4, p. 118. Among 
the other terms applied to him, Catso (II, 1, p. 80) occurs as a char- 
acter in Marston's Antonio and MelUda, and Nymphadoro (IT, 1, p. 86) 
in The Fawne. Brisk is also called a "good empty puff" (II, 1, p. 82). 
Cf. the character Puff in Jach Drum's Entertainment. In Cynthia's 
Revels (III, 2, p. 167), Anaides is called a "strange arrogating puff." 



Every Man out of his Humour 187 

As a giill, Brisk is nearer to Guilpin's type than to that of Davies. 
In some of the most general aspects of the town gull he continues 
the type seen in Mathew; that is^, he is an ape and a pretended 
gallant, he is scorned of those whom he cultivates, he uses affected 
speech and distinctive oaths, and he serves as model for a country 
gull. Both borrow from Daniel. Brisk, however, is not a poet, 
though he "speaks good remnants" (p. 63). But Mathew and 
Brisk are set in different scales. Mathew is a fishmonger's son 
and impecunious; he aspires no higher than to appear as a suitor 
in the family of a wealthy merchant. Brisk has lands, which he 
consumes, and a merchant who furnishes him money whereby to 
change his costume constantly. He is a courtier and the "servant" 
of a court lady, so lofty a figure that the rich merchant's wife 
dotes upon him as an ideal. He is also a much more composite 
portrait than Mathew, with far more extensive follies. With Brisk 
it seems to me that the early and more exact meaning of gull as 
seen in Davies, Chapman, and Jonson is breaking down. Brisk 
follows, rather, a certain type of the upstart that shows the funda- 
mental traits of the gull but carries to an extreme the excesses 
of the courtier. 

The narrowing of the older and more general courtier type 
toward Brisk and, at the same time, the growing complexity in the 
specific details connected with the character can easily be traced 
in the literature of the time. The figure of Pride in Medwell's 
Nature^ as I have pointed out above, is strongly suggestive of 
Brisk. Other old plays, also, began to fix the character of the 
courtier as a popular figure for satire. Skelton's Magnificence 
has in Courtly Abusion a good example of the type (11. 829 ff.). 
Courtly Abusion introduces the fashions from France, follows the 
most extreme styles, and is a model for others. "A carlys sonne" 
is especially mentioned as one who in order to ape him will 

Spende all his hyre 
That men hym gyue, 

until he is brought to ruin. Magnificence is charmed with 
Courtly Abusion's speech and manners (11. 1537 ff.) : 

He is not lyuynge your maners can amend; 

Mary, your speche is as pleasant as though it were pend, 

To here your comon, it is my hygh comforte, 

Foynt deuyse, all Pleasure is your porte. 



188 English Elejnents in Jonson's Early Comedy 

In these and other characteristics Courtly Abusion is the forerun- 
ner of Brisk, but the courtier has not yet become the exaggerated 
type of folly that Jonson portrays. 

The figure that embraces all the obnoxious qualities of the friv- 
olous courtier and dandy began to be worked out in the last ten 
years of the sixteenth century with much greater concreteness and 
a far more telling comic effect. Among the most important of 
the various characters who represent the follies of the courtier is 
the upstart as characterized by both Greene and N"ashe in 1592. 
With the upstart emerges a figure who sums up the follies of the 
gallant in one character and carries them all to extravagant 
lengths. In A Quip for an Upstart Courtier, Greene, dealing as 
he tells us, with "the abuses that Pride had hred in Englande" 
{Worhs, Vol. XI, p. 209), pictures in the person of Velvet- 
breeches "an vpstart come out of Italy, begot of Pride, nursed vp 
by selfe loue, & brought into this country by his companion Nu- 
fanglenesse" (p. 294). The concrete details of the treatment are 
almost as true to Brisk as is this general characterization. Nashe's 
best description of the upstart is given in Pierce Penilesse (Works, 
Vol. I, pp. 168, 169) under the genera] subject of pride. The por- 
trait is a much more composite one than Greene's, and includes 
pretensions to ancestry, to individuality in fashions, to poetic gift, 
elegance of language, and experience in travel and in war. All 
these details of the upstart are found in Jonson but distributed 
to narrower types. Portions of the description have already been 
quoted as illustrative of Mathew and Bobadill. Brisk is aptly 
described in such expressions as, "Hee will bee humorous, forsoth, 
and haue a broode of fashions by himselfe," and "Hee will . . . 
weare a feather of her rainbeaten fan for a fauor, like a fore- 
horse." Compare Brisk's, "This feather grew in her sweet fan 
sometimes, though now it be my poor fortune to wear it" (II, 1, 
p. 88). In The Terrors of the Night, also, Nashe has a sketch 
of "filthie Italionat complement-mungers . . . who would 
faine be counted the Courts Gloriosos, and the refined iudges of 
wit" (Vol. I, p. 361). Just so much of the sketch applies to 
Brisk's boasts of popularity in the court and his praise of Savio- 
lina's wit, but it probably fits better the courtiers of Cynthia's 
Revels. 

In the satire directed against Harvey, Nashe holds Harvey up 



Every Man out of his Humour 189 

to scorn as an upstart and affected dandy, and the description 
often recalls Brisk. In Haue ivith you to Safron-ivalden {WorJcs, 
Vol. Ill, pp. 91, 92), there is an account of how a friend of 
ISTashe's was received by Harvey: 

Two howres good by the clocke he attended his pleasure, whiles he 
. . . stood acting by the glasse all his gestures he was to vse all the 
day after, and currying & smudging and pranking himselfe vnmeasurably. 
Post varios casus, his case of tooth-pikes, his combe case, . . . run 
ouer, . . . downe he came, and after the hazelos manus, with ampli- 
fications and complements hee belaboured him till his eares tingled and 
his feet ak'd againe. Neuer was man so surfetted and ouer-gorged with 
English. . . . The Gentleman swore to mee that vpon his first appari- 
tion ... he tooke him for an Vsher of a dancing Schoole. 

ISTashe also tells (p. 109) how Barnes, a consort of Harvey, "get- 
ting him a strange payre of Bahilonian britches . . . went vp 
and downe Towue, and shewd himself in the Presence at Court, 
where he was generally laught out by the iSToblemen and Ladies." 
Again, Nashe says of Harvey (Vol. Ill, p. 116; compare p. 138) : 

But afterward, wnen his ambitious pride and vanitie vnmaskt it selfe 
so egregiously, both in his lookes, his gate, his gestures, and speaches, 
and hee would do nothing but crake and parret it in Print, in how manie 
Noble-mens fauours hee was, and blab euerie light speach they vttred to 
him in priuate, cockering & coying himselfe beyond imagination; then Sir 
Philip Sidney . . . began to looke askance on him, . . . though 
vtterly shake him off" | hee could not, hee would so fawne & hang vpon him. 

The spirit of these travesties is much like that with which Jonson 
treats Brisk. The comparison of Harvey to the usher of a danc- 
ing school seems especially happy for Brisk. Brisk, too, according 
to the prefatory character sketch, "practises by liis glass how to 
salute," and his "neat case of pick-tooths" is one of the things 
that calls forth Fallace's admiration (IV, 1, p. 111). His inflated 
diction is illustrated at the beginning of IV, 6 (p. 132), where 
he falls into a rapt eulogy of court life. Jonson has also developed 
with considerable effectiveness the fact that Brisk "cares not what 
lady's favour he belies, or great man's familiarity" (p. 63). Brisk 
claims to be beloved of great lords (II, 1, p. 88) and graced by 
great ladies (II, 2, p. 94 and IV, 4, p. 118), whereas Macilente 
reports that the few court ladies who know him "deride and play 
upon his amorous humours" (IV, 1, p. 111). 

Of the formal satirists, Donne does_^ not give, so far as I know, 



190 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

any portrait that combines the various follies of the court gallant. 
In his first satire, however, he touches upon some of the absurdities 
of shallow men of fashion, and mentions the "brisk perfumed pert 
courtier." Hall in Virgidemiarum (Book IV, Satire IV) rebukes 
Brisk's type of follies under the figure of Gallio, who is given to 
dainty diet, uses perfiunes, oils his locks, shields his chalked face 
with a plumed fan, and spends his time in gentlemanly diversions 
or in courting his "lovely dame." Davies, who is earlier than 
Hall, has developed a number of well defined types around which 
he groups certain characteristics. Besides the gull, he gives us in 
Epigram 22, In Ciprum, the picture of a gallant who, like Brisk, 
is "tierse and neate," — compare Jonson's "neat, spruce, affecting 
courtier," — follows the newest fashion with constant changes, takes 
tobacco, and "wastes more time in dressing then a wench." 

In the satire of Marston and Guilpin the sketches of gallants 
and courtiers assume a still greater definiteness and approach 
nearer to Jonson's portrait. Marston, in the first satire of Pygma- 
lion's Image and Certain Satires, gives a series of rapid sketches, 
nearly ail of which have details fairly close to Brisk. One of 
them, which has often been pointed out for its likeness to Brisk, 
uses the word brisk, here Latinized to Briscus, as the name of the 
character. It seems worth while to quote at some length from 
this satire. 

Tell me, brown Riiscus, hast thou Gyges' ring, 
That thou presumest as if thou wert unseen? 
If not, why in thy wits half capreal 
Lett'st thou a superscribed letter fall? 
And from thyself unto thyself dost send. 
And in the same thyself thyself commend? 
For shame! leave running to some satrapas. 
Leave glavering on him in the peopled press; 
Holding him on as he through Paul's doth walk. 
With nods and legs and odd superfluous talk; 
Making men think thee gracious in his sight, 
When he esteems thee but a parasite. 



Come, Briscus, by the soul of compliment, 
I'll not endure that with thine instrument 
(Thy gambo-viol placed betwixt thy thighs, 
Wherein the best part of thy courtship lies) 
Thou entertain the time, thy mistress by. 



Every Man out of his Humour 191 

Come, now let's hear thy mounting Mercury. 
What! mum? Give him his fiddle once again, 
Or he's more mute than a Pythagoran. 
But oh! the absolute Castillo, — 
He that can all the points of courtship show; 
He that can trot a courser, break a rush, 

Can set his face, and with his eye can speak. 
Can dally with his mistress' dangling feak, 
And wish that he were it, to kiss her eye 
And flare about her beauty's deity: — 
Tut! he is famous for his revelling, 
For fine set speeches, and for sonnetting; 
He scorns the viol and the scraping stick, 
And yet's but broker of another's wit. 

Yet I can bear with Curio's nimble feet. 
Saluting me with capers in the street. 
Although in open view and people's face. 
He fronts me with some spruce, neat, cinquepace. 

The first sketch that I have quoted here is to illustrate the use 
of Erasmus's instructions to the False Knight before Jonson util- 
ized the same thing in Carlo's advice to Sogliardo and in Brisk's 
pretence to familiarity with the great. In the next sketch, Brisk's 
courting with the viol is anticipated. In fact, the courting of 
Briscus is just that of Brisk, for the best part of Brisk's courtship 
lies in filling up with recourse to tobacco and viol the intervals 
wherein words fail him for all of his phrases learned by rote. 
Like Castilio, Brisk has his fast horse, who runs "with the very 
sound of the spur" (II, 1, p. 80). Castillo's wish that he were 
his mistress's curl to kiss her eye suggests Brisk's protestation to 
Macilente : "I have wished myself to be that instrument, I think, 
a thousand times, and not so few, by heaven . . . to be in 
use, I assure you" (III, 3, p. 109). A whole series of such lover's 
wishes is given in Satire VIII of Marston's Scourge of Villainy 
(11. 118-137) — to be a mistress's busk, dog, monkey, flea, verdin- 
gal, fan, or necklace. Compare also Watson's Hel'atompathia, 
ISTo. 28, and Barnes's sixty-third sonnet. The "fine set speeches" 
of Castilio and his inability to be more than "broker of another's 
wit" are characteristic of Brisk as of the gallant in general. Brisk 
"speaks good remnants" according to the sketch that Jonson gives 
of him, and his fine speaking is pronounced "not extemporal" (IV, 



192 EngUsli Elements in Jonsons Early Comedy 

6, p. 112). The few lines on Curio deal with a side of gallantry 
that appears also in Brisk as well as in Guilpin's satire on the 
gallant quoted below (pp. 193, 194). 

In the second satire, again, Marston gives a picture of a courte- 
san dressed as a gallant of Brisk's type. The conventional adjec- 
tives that Jonson applies to Brisk — neat, spruce, etc. — appear here 
also: 

In faith, yon is a well-faced gentleman; 

See how he paceth like a Cyprian! 

Fair amber tresses of the fairest hair 

That ere were waved by our London air ; 

Rich laced suit, all spruce, all neat, in truth. 

Ho, Lynceus! what's yonder brisk neat youth? 



Fair Briscus, I shall stand in doubt 
What sex thou art, since such hermaphrodites. 
Such Protean shadows so delude our sights. 

The third satire contains three sketches. Tlie first of them 
describes a "dapper, rare, complete, sweet nitty youth," similar to 
Brisk excej^t that Brisk's lechery is not so openly stressed. The 
word fantastic, which is twice applied to Brisk (pp. 101 and 111), 
is used three times in describing this character.^ The gallant is 
satirized chiefly for the elaborateness of his dress, — his ruff, his 
falling band, his crossed and recrossed lace, his hat with small 
crown, great brim, and band filled with feathers, his perfume, etc.^ 
The wearing of feathers, Marston says, "is a sign of a fantastic 
still" (1. 26). The second sketch, which describes the "inamorato 
Lucian" in the throes of love, has no value for Brisk unless it be 
in the extravagant praise of a mistress (cf. Every Man out, II, 1, 
p. 88). Marston continues: 

When as thou hear'st me ask spruce Duceus 
From whence he comes ; and he stranght answers us, 
From Lady Lilla; and is going straight 

^The descriptive term fantastic, like the terms brisk or shift, seems to 
have stood for a fairly definite type. Nashe speaks of "Senior Fantas- 
ticos" (Works, Vol. Ill, p. 31). In The Jests of Peele {Shakespeare 
Jest-Books. Vol. II, p. 294) a gull, on account of dress, is called a "Fan- 
tasticke whose braine was made of nought but Corke and Spunge." 

-His prayer (11. 8, 9) that 

The fashion change not (lest he should despair 
Of ever hoarding up more fair gay clothes) 

suggests Fungoso. 



Every Man out of his Humour 193 

To the Countess of ( ), for she doth wait 

His coming, and will surely send her coach, 

Unless he make the speediei* approach: 

Art not thou ready for to break thy spleen 

At laughing at the fondness thou hast seen 

In this vain-glorious fool, when thou dost know 

He never durst unto these ladies show 

His pippin face? 

Brisk in II, 2 (p. 94) boasts: "There was a countess gave me 
her hand to kiss today, i' the presence : did me more good by that 
light than — and yesternight sent her coach twice to my lodging, 
to intreat me accompany her, and my sweet mistress, with some 
two or three nameless ladies more: 0, I have been graced by 
them beyond all aim of affection." In the preceding scene, when 
Brisk mentions by name a number of lords who contend for his 
society when lie is at court. Carlo remarks (p. 88) : "There's 
ne'er a one of these but might lie a week on the rack, ere they 
could bring forth his name; and yet he pours them out as famil- 
iarly as if he had seen them stand by the fire in the presence, or 
ta'en tobacco with them over the stage, in the lords' room." 

Satire VII of The Scourge of Villainy contains another picture 
of the "brisk," "spruce" gallant in "sumptuous clothes," but it is 
meagerly sketched. This later work, indeed, is of less interest for 
Jonson's types than are the satires included with Pygmalion's 
Image. Not only are the portraits in The Scourge of Villainy 
less minute, but Marston deals especially with all forms of lechery, 
a subject that Jonson is not given to treating. In the dedication 
to Volpone Jonson declares: "I have ever trembled to think 
toward the least profaneness; have loathgd the use of such foul 
and unwashed bawdry, as is now made the food of the scene." 
The excessive crabbedness of Marston's newer style was also repel- 
lent to Jonson. 

Guilpin's first picture of the type to which Brisk belongs is in 
Epigram 38 of Skialetheia, "To Licus" : 

He's a fine fellow who is neate and fine, 

Whose locks are kem'd & neuer a tangled twine, 

Who smels of Musk, Ciuet, and Pomander, 

Who spends, and out-spends many a pounde a yeare, 

Who piertly lets, can caper, davmce, and sing, 

Play with his Mistris fingers, her hand wring, 

Who companying with wenches nere is still : 



194 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

But either skips or mowes, or prates his fill, 
Who is at euery play, and euery night 
Sups with his Ingles, who can well recite 
Whatsoeuer rimes are gracious, etc. 

, In II, 1 (p. 82) Carlo says of Brisk, "He sleeps with a musk-cat 
every night, and walks all day hauged in pomander chains for 
penance: he has his skin tanned in civet," etc. Here the same 
perfumes are mentioned as in the epigram above. The capering 
and dancing of Guilpims character is paralleled in Brisk's court- 
ship of Saviolina (HI, 3, p. 108), when he wishes for his vaulting 
horse in order to display his activity, and the page suggests 
that but for the lack of long stockings he might dance a galliard. 
In Epigram 14, also "To Licus," Guilpin repeats the satire on 
dancing, vaulting, and extreme dress. Epigram 53, "Of Corne- 
lius," again describes in detail the dress of the ultrafashionable 
gallant, and elsewhere in the epigrams and satires of Skialetheia 
there are suggestions of Brisk. In Satire V, a picture is drawn 
of Don Fashio]! which might be taken for Brisk : 

But see, see, 
Heere comes Don Fashion, spruce formality, 
Neat as a Merchants ruffe, that's set in print, 
New halfe-penny, skip'd forth his Laundres mint; 
Oh braue! what, with a feather in his hat? 
He is a dauncer, you may see by that; 
Light heeles, light head, light feather well agree. 
Salute him, with th' embrace beneath the knee? 
I thinke twere better let him passe along, 
He will so dawbe vs with his oyly tongue, 
For thinking on some of his Mistresses, 
We shall be curried with the briske phrases, 
And prick-song termes he hath premeditate: 
Speake to him, woe to us, for we shall ha'te, 
Then farewell he. 

With the first two lines quoted from the satire, compare the 
opening words of the character sketch of Brisk, "A neat, spruce, 
affecting courtier, one that wears clothes well, and in fashion." 
The "light head, light feather well agree" may be compared with 
Carlo's remark about Brisk, "His brains lighter than his feather 
already" (II, 1, p. 83). Brisk's premeditated speeches, his praise 
of his mistress, and his dancing have already been mentioned. 
Immediately upon the description of Don Fashion there follows 



Every Man out of his Humour 195 

the picture of another type of the foolish, vainglorious courtier, 
but with humours in sharp contrast to those of Don Fashion : 

But soft, whom liaue we heare? 
What braue Saint George, what mounted Caualiere? 
He is all court-like, Spanish in's attire. 
He hath the righte ducke, pray God he be no Frier: 
Thys is the Dictionary of complements, 
The Barbers mouth of new-scrapt eloquence, 
Synomicke Tully for varietie. 
And Madame Conceits gorgeous gallerie. 
The exact patter ne which Castilio 
Tooke for's accomplish Courtier: but soft ho. 
What needs that bownd, or that curuet (good sir) 
There's some sweet Lady, and tis done to her, 
That she may see his lennets nimble force: 
Why, would he haue her in loue with his horse? 
Or aymes he at popish merrit, to make 
Her in loue witli him for his horses sake? 

The juxtaposition of these two characters is not accidental. The 
one satirizes the newer and more degenerate type of the Italianate 
courtier; the other, the older, more formal type represented, as 
Guilpin indicates, in the ideal which Castiglione sets forth in The 
Courtier. The contrast undoubtedly emphasizes two phases of gal- 
lantry to be observed and easily distinguished every day in London, 
and the two types readily lent themselves to treatment in satire. 
The same contrast is seen in Brisk and Puntarvolo, and is con- 
tinued, though less sharply, in Hedon and Amorphus of Cynthia's 
Revels.'^ In connection with Brisk, I have already discussed the 
two corresponding sketches in Marston's work — those of Briscus 
and Castilio. Here again the second type is connected with the 
author of the most famous of the Italian courtesy books. I quote 
the sketch in full, though parts of it have already been quoted as 
applicable to Brisk. 

But oh ! the absolute Castilio, — 

He that can all the points of courtship show; 

He that can trot a courser, break a rush, 

And arm'd in proof, dare dure a straw's strong push; 

He, who on his glorious scutcheon 

^Cf. the discussion of these types under Cynthia's Revels, pp. 264 f. and 
272 f. infra. The pomp of the Puntarvolo type, however, is not so well 
developed in Amorphus. 



196 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

Can quaintly show wit's new invention, 

Advancing forth some thirsty Tantalus, 

Or else the vulture on Prometheus, 

With some short motto of a dozen lines; 

He that can purpose it in dainty rhymes. 

Can set his face, and with his eye can speak, 

Can dally with his mistress' dangling feak. 

And wish that he were it, to kiss her eye 

And flare about her beauty's deity: — 

Tut! he is famous for his revelling. 

For fine set speeches, and for sonnetting; 

He scorns the viol and the scraping stick. 

And yet's but broker of another's wit. 

Certes, if all things were well known and view'd. 

He doth but champ that which another chew'd. 

Come, come, Castilion, skim thy posset curd. 

Show thy queer substance, worthless, most absurd. 

Take ceremonious compliment from thee! 

Alas ! I see Castillo's beggary. 

With the early part of this sketch compare Carlo's characterization 
of Puntarvolo (II, 1, p. 82) : "He has a good riding face, and 
he can sit a great horse; he will taint a staff well at tilt . . . 
instead of a dragon, he will brandish against a tree, and break 
his sword as confidently upon the knotty bark, as the other did 
upon the scales of the beast." It is evident, however, that with 
Marston the line of demarkation between the two types is not so 
clear as with Guilpin or with Jonson in Every Man out.^ Cas- 
tillo has many of the characteristics of Brisk, whereas Guilpin's 
sketch of the Castillo type shows distinctly the formality and 
pompousness of Puntarvolo. In Puntarvolo, with his formality, 
his love of compliment, his stilted vocabulary and set speeches, 
and his practice of chivalric customs, we have just the follies that 
the Elizabethan inspired by the Italian ideal of rounded perfection 

'Again in Antonio and Mellida, Marston's treatment of the character 
Castillo Balthazar indicates his failure to stress the formality of the 
type as Guilpin and Jonson do, for Castillo Balthazar shows many char- 
acteristics that ally him with Brisk. It is noticeable that Marston's 
machinery for satire in Antonio and Mellida is very similar to Jonson's 
in Every Man out, Feliche corresponding to Macilente in his attitude to 
the courtier and the gull. It is interesting, also, to find Marston at this 
early date apparently distinguishing between the courtier and the gull; 
although Castillo and Balurdo have very similar fashions and fads, Bul- 
len is clearly right in calling the first a "spruce courtier" and the second 
a gull. 



Every Man out of his Humour 197 

in a nobleman might be guilty of when the formal side of his cul- 
ture meant more to him than the spirit underlying the ideal." 

Guilpin's sketch is closest to Jonson's character both in point 
of time and in scope of treatment, as I have indicated, and the 
two may bear a somewhat detailed comparison. For phrasing, 
the line — 

What braiie Saint George, what mounted Caualiere? 

may be compared with the description of Puntarvolo in II, 1 (p. 
82) : "When he is mounted he looks like the sign of the George." 
By ''all court-like, Spanish in's attire," Guilpin probably intends 
to indicate a stiffer, more formal dress than Don Fashion's. Jon- 
son perhaps made the same distinction in Brisk and Puntarvolo. 
Brisk's dress at least allows him to be active. Puntarvolo is 
described by Carlo as stiff and formal (II, 1, p. 84) : "Heart, 
can any man walk more upright than he does? Look, look; as if 
he went in a frame, or had a suit of wainscot on : and the dog 
watching him, lest he should leap out on't." Later, in answer to 
Macilente's question, "What's he there?" Carlo says, "Who, this 
in the starched beard? it's the dull, stiff knight Puntarvolo" (IV, 
4, p. 116). Whether the statement in the prefatory character 
sketch of Puntarvolo that he "hath lived to see the revolution of 
time in most of his apparel" means that his dress is threadbare or 
that it is out of fashion is uncertain, but from the remainder of 
the characterization I should be inclined to the second interpre- 
tation. One of Carlo's "stabbing similes" is to the effect that 
Puntarvolo "looks like a shield of brawn at Shrove-tide, out of 
date," etc. (IV, 4). The lines of Guilpin's sketch,— 

^Hart has worked out an elaborate identification of Puntarvolo with 
Raleigh ( Works of Ben Jonson, pp. xl ff . ) , chiefly on account of the fact 
that Sir W[alter] R[aleigh] sealed up Chester's mouth. Earlier he iden- 
tified the character with Harvey (9 JV. and (}., Vol. XII, p. 343). Some 
details of Puntarvolo would fit either. But Nashe's satire on the Ital- 
ianate manners and dress of Harvey was doubtless based on a certain 
element of truth, and Nashe portrays Harvey as of the Brisk type. Har- 
vey seems to have admired Castiglione's ideals highly, however (cf. 
Works, Vol. I, p. 245). On the other hand, Raleigh undoubtedly had the 
manners and ideals of the Italianate courtier of the "gorgeous" or pom- 
pous type. That there should be personal satire in Puntarvolo would not 
be at all inconsistent witii Jonson's primary treatment of the character 
as a type, as we have seen in Carlo, but the type here certainly seems to 
dominate over the individual. 



198 English Elements in- Jonson's Early Comedy 

Thys is the Dictionary of complements, 

The Barbers mouth of new-scrapt eloquence, 

Synomicke 'fully for varietie, 

And Madame Conceits gorgeous gallerie, — 

suggest parts of the character sketch of Puntarvolo : "A vain- 
glorious knight . . . wholly consecrated to singularity; the 
very Jacob's staff of compliment. . . . He deals upon . . 
strange performances, resolving, in despite of public derision, to 
stick to his own particular fashion, phrase, and gesture." Guil- 
pin's lines, however, are better illustrated by Puntarvolo's strange 
and whimsical devices in the play than by the wording of Jonson's 
sketch. "Complements," eloquence, variety, and conceits are all 
ilhistrated at Puntarvolo's first appearance, in II, 1. Approach- 
ing his own home, he goes through the elaborate ceremony of a 
medieval knight approaching a guarded castle, and has trained his 
household to engage with him in a well nigh endless rigmarole of 
complimentary queries and replies. His affected language in this 
scene completely eclipses Brisk's as "new-scrapt" and singular. 
Brisk, like Mathew and Bobadill, strives after elegance rather than 
singularity. Pimtarvolo affects such expressions as "splendidi- 
ous,"^ "heavenly pulchritude," "organs to my optic sense," "debo- 
nair and luculent lady,"'- and "decline as low as the basis of your 
altitude" (all in II, 1)." One of Puntarvolo's conceits, which is 
described by Carlo as erecting a "dial of compliment," is expressed 
in the following figure: "To the perfection of compliment (which 
is the dial of the thought, and guided by the sun of your beauties) 
are required these three specials; the gnomon, the puntilios. and 
the superficies : the superficies is that we call place ; the puntilios, 
circumstance; and the gnomon, ceremony; in either of which, for 
a stranger to err, 'tis easy and facile" (II, 1, p. 83).* Every action 

^This is one of the words used in Wilson's inkhorn letter, Arte of 
Rhetorique, p. 163. Cf. also Cynthia's Revels, V, 3, p. 200. 

-Cf. "organons of sense" in The Scourge of Villainy, Satire VIII, 1. 210, 
satirized in Poetaster, V, 1, p. 257. For "luculent" see Hart, Works of 
Ben Jonson, Vol. I, p. xlv. 

^Cf. Hart, 9 N. and Q., Vol. XII, p. 343, for the fact that some of 
Harvey's affected terms are used by Puntarvolo and Brisk. 

*The Diall of Princes and the figurative use of dial in Shakespeare's 
works illustrate the basis in current speech for the conceit which Jonson 
makes Puntarvolo work into his discourse with such elaboration. There 
is a figurative use of "diall Gnomon" in Uistriomastix, IV, 1. 108. Jon- 
son uses the same figure again in Cynthia's Revels (V, 2, p. 194; cf. II, 
1, p. 160). 



Every Man out of his Humour 199 

of the knight, as well, illustrates the phrase "Madame Conceits 
gorgeous gallerie," and we may add "of Gallant Inventions." 

Puntarvolo's knightly procedure in approaching his home, and 
the indentures for his venture, part of which GifEord says fur- 
nishes a burlesque upon the oaths taken by the combatants of 
romance (Vol. I, p. 113, n. 2), obviously hark back to the chiv- 
alric romances. The same thing is true of the account that Brisk 
gives of his long battle with Signior Luculento (IV, 4), in which 
pieces of rich apparel are substituted for parts of armor that were 
slashed away in the long engagements of the romances.^ I have 
happened upon nothing similar enough to Puntarvolo's entry or 
to Brisk's battle to be suggestive of Jonson, though doubtless good 
parallels for both are to be found. Such scenes may have existed 
in plays now lost. There is little doubt, however, that Jonson 
was satirizing living rather than dead follies. That like echoes 
of old knightly manners were found, at least in the pastimes of 
the courtiers of the day, is clear from such sources as the "Chal- 
lenges to a Tourney" of the Lansdowne Manuscripts published in 
the Collections of the Malone Society (Vol. I, pp. 181 ff.). Con- 
ventions of various sorts from the days of chivalry and courtly love 
as continued or revived in the Eenaissance are satirized rather ex- 
haustively in Cynthia's Revels. In Every Man out, Jonson merely 
makes his first essays in the study of follies belonging to the court. 

The part of Puntarvolo's indentures that parodies the old oath 
of combatants reads (IV, 4, p. 113) : 

That, after the receipt of his money, he shall neither, in his own per- 
son, nor any other, either by direct or indirect means, as magic, witch- 
craft, or other such exotic arts, attempt, practise, or complot anything 
to the prejudice of me, my dog, or my cat: neither shall I vise the help 
of any such sorceries or enchantments, as unctions to make our skins 
impenetrable, or to travel invisible by virtue of a powder, or a ring, or 
to hang any three-forked charm about my dog's neck, secretly conveyed 
into his collar . . . but that all be performed sincerely, without 
fraud or imposture. 

Mr. Tennant in his edition of The New Inn (pp. lix, Ix) quotes 
two forms of the combatant's oath in connection with the court of 
love material in his play. The one which he cites from Stow is 
as follows : 

'Dekker's iise of the same idea in Patient Grissell seems to me almost 
certainly copied from Jonson. 



200 English Elements in Jonsons Early Comedy 

This hear, you justices, that I have this day neither eat, drunk, nor 
yet have upon me either bone, stone, ne glass, or any enchantment, sor- 
cery or witchcraft, where through the power of the Word of God might 
be inleased or diminished, and the devil's power increased, and that my 
appeal is true, so lielp me God and his saints, and by this Book. 

The second, which is from the Black Booh of the Admiralty, is 
in part to the effect that the combatant neither has nor shall have 
"stone of vertue, ne herbe of vertue, ne charme, ne experiment, ne 
carocte, ne othir inchauntment by the, ne for thee, by the which 
thou trusteth the l)ettir to ovircome . . . thine adversarie."^ 
For the remainder of the indentures the "Challenges to a Tourney" 
which I have just mentioned is of some interest. The challenger 
offers certain "Condictons and ordre," which concern the forfeit, 
the equipment, the mode of procedure, and the mode of decision 
between the combatants. Puntarvolo's indentures cover practically 
the same points. 

Such a venture as is satirized in Puntarvolo's trip to Constanti- 
nople with his dog and his cat on the condition that he is to receive 
five for one if he and his animals return, seems to have been not 
unusual at the end of the sixteenth century. There is a well 
known passage in The Terrors of the Night {WorTcs, Vol. I, p. 
3-13) in which Kashe speaks of "such poore fellowes as I, that can- 
not put out money to he paid againe when wee come from Con- 
stantinople." In Epigram 42, In Licum, Davies mentions Venice 
instead of Constantinople : 

Lycus, which lately is to Venice gone, 

Shall if he doe returne, gaine three for one. 

Saviolina is Jonson's first study in the type of court lady elab- 
orated so fully in Cynthia's Bevels. Two scenes are given to her, — 
one to Brisk's courtship and her affectation of wit, and the other 
to her overthrow. Elsewhere, however, she is constantly praised 
by Brisk, especially for her wit. One expression which he applies 
to her, "anatomy of wit" (III, 1, p. 98), at once suggests Euphues. 
In an earlier scene (I, 2, p. 88), Brisk says of her, "She does 
observe as pure a phrase, and use as choice figures in her ordinary 
conferences, as any be in the Arcadia"; and Carlo adds, "Or rather 

^I quote from Tennant in both cases. The example from Stow he cites 
from Neilson's Trial by Uombat. 



Every Man out of his Humour 201 

in Green's works, whence she may steal with more security." 
Euphuism and the variations on it for affected speech are thus 
satirized in Saviolina as well as in other characters of the play. 
Fungoso and Fallace use expressions from Euphues, and Brisk's 
speech often betrays the trick of Euphuism. Sufficient evidence 
exists that many gallants of the day still affected the jargon, and 
its use is satirized frequently. Macilente's remark that Savio- 
lina's "jests are of the stamp March was fifteen years ago" again 
seems to connect her with the fashion of Lyly and his followers. 
In fact, whether she is true to life or not, Saviolina belongs to 
the type that Lyly loved to portray and that Greene and other fol- 
lowers of Lyly often treated; or, to be more exact, she is a bur- 
lesque on the type which these earlier writers treated seriously. 
Tffida of Euphues, as she is portrayed in the account which Fidus 
gives of his passion for her, is a good example of the type. She is 
proud and haughty to the obseqviious lover, meets his advances 
with rebuffs, and has a quiver of sharp replies or perversions of liis 
language to return to him. The lover, like Brisk, stands in awe 
before his mistress and pours out upon her grandiloquent compli- 
ments and addresses. It is chiefly Iffida's rare wit that is stressed, 
however, and some examples of it will best illustrate the point of 
Jonson's satire on Saviolina's antiquated jests. "Gentleman," 
says Iffida, "in arguing of wittes, you mistake mine, and call your 
owne into question" {WorJcs of Lyly, Vol. II, p. 55). "0, Mon- 
sieur Brisk," Saviolina retorts, "be not so tyrannous to confine all 
wits within the compass of your own" (V, 2, p. 136). Iffida 
tells a number of anecdotes that illustrate wit in women. One of 
them turns upon a play on the words son and sun (p. 60). So 
Brisk is delighted with Saviolina's wit in playing upon for and 
'fore (III, 3, p. 109). A second anecdote told by Iffida is of a 
woman's ready reply when a man tells her that he can not judge of 
her wit (p. 60) : "No quoth she, I beleue you, for none can judge 
of wit, but they that haue it, why then qnoth he, doest thou thinke 
me a foole, thought is free my Lord quoth she, I wil not take you 
at your word. He perceiuing al outward faults to be recompenced 
with inward fauour, chose this virgin for his wife." There is not 
much choice between this and the witticism with which Saviolina 
meets Brisk's question as to whether she will take some tobacco 
(III, 3, p. 110) : 



202 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedij 

Sav. O, peace, I pray you; I love not the breath of a woodcock's head. 

Fast[idious Brisk], Meaning my head, lady? 

Sav. Not altogether so, sir; but, as it were fatal to their follies that 
think to grace themselves with taking tobacco, when they want better 
entertainment, you see your pipe bears the true form of a woodcock's 
head. 

Fast. O admirable simile! 

It is then that Macilente makes his remark about the age of 
Saviolina's jestf. 

In the second scene given to Saviolina, V, 2, she is put out of 
her humour by being deceived into believing that the clown Sogli- 
ardo is a gentleman. A device of the same kind, with a different 
result, occurs in the play Sir Thomas More, where More dresses 
his servant as himself in order to deceive Erasmus, and in Friar 
Bacon and Friar Bungay, where Ralph dressed as the Prince fails 
to deceive Bacon. Professor Bang, however, has pointed out 
{Englische Studien, Vol. 36, pp. 330, 331) in Hoby's translation 
of The Courtier (Tudor Translations, pp. 192, 193) what may 
well have been the actual source of this scene. Here a country 
fellow, well dressed, has been described to certain court ladies as 
a perfect courtier who is able to play the perfect countryman. The 
ladies are completely duped by the trick, amid the laughter of the 
onlookers, and are with difficulty persuaded of their mistake. In 
these details the trick is like that played upon Saviolina. 

While I have compared Saviolina with Lyly's types, it must be 
remembered that wit as an element of courtliness was a part of 
the ideal of the age, and that The Courtier and other works of the 
kind gave prominence to the witty woman. But the courtly lady 
of Castiglione's work is very different from the affected type por- 
trayed by Lyly. Castiglione, indeed, condemns affecicd speech 
while praising wit highly. There is little doubt, however, that 
Lyly's type is a development of the Italian, and probably as little 
doubt that the manners of English women were influenced by Ital- 
ian courtesy books. ^ 

The other humorists of Every Man out — Sordido, Sogliardo, 
Fungoso, Fallace, and Deliro — all belong to a family group. Of 

^Prof. Raleigh in his introduction to The Courtier claims that the 
witty women of TJie Courtier influenced Shakespeare's witty women. Miss 
M. A. Scott has elaborated the idea in Modern Language Publications, 
Vol. XVI, pp. 475 ff. 



Every Man out of his Humour 203 

these the most conventional figure is Sordido, the corn-hoarder. 
Allusions to the custom of hoarding corn are frequent from early 
times.^ In A Merry Knack to Know a Knave (Hazlitt's Dodsley, 
AT'ol. VI, p. 561) one of the indictments brought against the farmer 
is that "he keeps corn in his barn, and suffers his brethren and 
neighbours to lie and want; and thereby makes the market so dear, 
that the poor can buy no corn." Stubbes deals with the same evil 
in the second part of The Anatomy of Abuses (New Shakspere 
Society, pp. 45, 46), commenting on the brutal selfishness of the 
corn-hoarder. In Greene's Quip for an Upstart Courtier, among 
the abuses of the grasping farmer. Cloth-breeches describes that 
of corn hoarding in terms which fit Sordido perfectly {Works, 
Vol. XI, p. 285) : 

Besides the base chuffe if he sees a forward yeare, & that corne is like 
to be plenty, then he murmereth against God and swereth and protesteth 
he shall be vndoone: respecting more the filling of his owne coiTers by a 
dearth then the profit of his country by a generall plenty. Beside sir 
may it please yovi when new corne comes into the market, who brings it 
in to relieue tlie state? Not your mastership, but the poore husband- 
man, that wants pence. For you keepe it till the back end of the yeare, 
nay you haue your Garners which haue come of two or three yeares old, 
vpon hope still of a deare yeare, rather letting the weasels eate it, then 
the poore should haue it at any reasonable price. 

The hard year of 1594, which is supposedly described in Midsum- 
mer Night's Dream, produced in England numbers of regraters, 
as they were called, and before the end of the century other hard 
years seem to have followed. So great did the abuse of regrating 
become that the Queen's Proclamation of November, 1596, insisted 
upon the execution of previous orders to the effect that "the lustices 
of peace in' euery quarter should stay all Ingrossers, Forestallers, 
and Eegraters of Corne, and to direct all Owners and Farmers 
hauing Corne to furnish the Markets ratably and weekly with such 
quantities as vsually they had done before time, or reasonably 
might and ought to doe."^ It will be remembered that in Every 
Man out (I, 1, pp. 77, 78) an order arrives from the justice charg- 

^Cf. Ship of Fools, ed. Jamieson, Vol. II, pp. 167-169; and Works of 
Nashe, Vol. II, pp. 158 and 286. 

-Quoted from Furnivall's introduction (p. xx) to The Second Part of 
the Anatomy of Abuses by Stubbes. 



204 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

ing Sordido to market his grain, and that he immediately plans 
to hide it in the earth. ^ 

Sordido is hoarding corn in expectation of a dear year because 
his almanac has prophesied almost continual bad weather. He 
reads aloud from the almanac on the stage, and exults over its 
prognostications. Satire on the prophecies of almanacs is as com- 
mon as the rest of Jonson's treatment of Sordido. Stubbes in 
The Second Part of the Anatomy of Abuses (p. 66) rebukes 
directly what Jonson satirizes indirectly — the foretelling of sea- 
sons of plenty and dearth. "Therefore prognosticators are herein 
much to be blamed, for that they take vpon them to foreshew what 
things shall be plentie, and what scarce, what deere, what good 
cheape. "When shal be faire weather, when foule, and the like," 
etc. The reading from ah almanac on the stage is paralleled in 
one of the entertainments provided for Queen Elizabeth at Sudeley 
(printed in Bond's WorJcs of Lyhj, Vol. I, pp. 481 if.). An alma- 
nac is called for, and Cutter produces one, saying: "I euer carrie 
it, to knowe the hye waies to euerie good towne, the faires, and the 
faire weather." Then Melibaeus reads the prognostication for cer- 
tain days, but chooses dates notable in Elizabeth's life or connected 
with her visit, thus turning the device to neat compliment of the 
Queen.^ 

The prophecies of Sordido's almanac fail, the crop promises to 
be abundant, and Sordido prepares to hang himself (III, 2). His 
declaration that all his wealth is hidden so that his children can 
not enjoy it belongs to the miser. It will be sufficient to instance 
the fact that Plautus in the prologue of Aulularia, which Jonson 
had already used, represents Euclio's grandfather as "of such an 

^The scarcity of corn at this period naturally resulted in the produc- 
tion of some literature on the subject before Jonson's play. "Newes from 
Jack Begger under the Bushe, with the advise of Gregory Gaddesman 
his fellow begger touchinge the deare prizes of corne and hardnes of this 
present yere" was entered on the Stationers' Register Dec. 28, 1594. Cf. 
Alden, Rise of Formal Satire, p. 233, n. 3. In 1596, Deloney wrote a 
ballad in dialogue "Containing a Complaint of the great want and scar- 
citie of corn within this realm." Cf. Sievers, Thomas Deloney, etc., 
Palaestra, No. 36, pp. 2 and 3. 

-The similarity between the prophecy "the twelfth the weather inclined 
to moisture" and Sordido's "29, inclining to rain" would indicate that 
both plays follow the phraseology of current almanacs. Indeed, it does 
not seem to me improbable that Jonson was burlesquing some actual 
almanac of the time. Cf. his use of Broughton's works in The Alchemist 
and of Harsnet's or Barrel's in The Devil is an Ass. 



Every Man out of his Humour 305 

avaricious disposition, that he would never disclose it [his buried 
treasure] to his own son, and preferred rather to leave him in 
want than to sliow that treasure to that son" (Bohn Library). 
Sordido's attempt to hang himself is equally conventional. Small 
(Stage-Quarrel, p. 54) calls attention to number clxiv of the 
Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, where the story is told of one who 
hung himself because, on account of continued good harvests, the 
grain that he had collected did not rise in price. The most sug- 
gestive parallel for the scene in which Sordido attempts suicide 
has been pointed out by Professor Ealeigh (introduction to The 
Courtier, p. Ixxix) in a passage from Hoby's translation of The 
Courtier (Tudor Translations, p. 179).^ The passage reads: 

And M. Augustin Bevazzano toulde, that a covetous manne whiche 
woulde not sell hys corne while it was at a highe price, whan he sawe 
afterwarde it had a great falle, for desperacion he hanged himself upon 
a beame in his chamber, and a servaunt of his hearing the noise, made 
speede, and seeing his maister hang, furthwith cut in sunder the rope 
and so saved him from death : afterwarde whan the covetous man came 
to himselfe, he woulde have had hys servaunt to have paide him for his 
halter that he had cut. 

A detail indicating that Jonson took his version of the story from 
The Courtier is found in the fact that the peasant who saves Sor- 
dido is rebuked for cutting the rope instead of untying it. 

The characterization of Fungoso is simple, though fairly effec- 
tive. The son of the miserly farmer Sordido, he is put at the 
Inns of Court to study law and become a gentleman. He is in- 
fected, however, with a passion for dress, attempts to follow Brisk's 
fashions, and in consequence is put to extreme shifts, begging from 
his sister, pawning his clothes, going in debt to his tailor, and 
writing lying letters to his father. The number of satirical refer- 
ences in English literature to sons of peasants who aspire to gal- 
lantry and spend their stingy fathers' money in fast living is un- 
told. Nashe has a brief sketch of the general type in The Anat- 
omie of Absurditie (Vol. I, p. 35) and again in Pierce Penilesse 
(Vol. I, p. 160). Prodigal Zodon in the second satire of Middle- 

^Prof. Bang in Eng. Studien, Vol. 36, p. 331, has later quoted the 
passage in connection with Sordido. Cf. also Miss M. A. Scott in Mod. 
Lang. Puhl., Vol. XVT, p. 488 f. Prof. Raleigli would trace to Castiglione 
all Elizabethan references to a farmer's hanging himself, but the parallel 
pointed out by Small shows a wider distribution of the anecdote. 



206 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

ton's Micro-Cynicon spends in high living the patrimony left 
him by his father, Greedy Cron, who, like Sordido, "in a humour 
goes and hangs himself" on account of certain losses (Satire I). 
More suggestive of Fungoso is Hall's satire on the son of "drivel- 
ing Lolio" (Book IV, Satire II). Lolio drudges and saves that his 
son may be a gentleman, while the son, who is at the Inns of Court, 
neglects law and spends everything on dress and gay living. The 
seeking of a coat of arms which is mentioned by Nashe and Hall is 
found with Jonson in Sogliardo. The word Fungoso is merely a 
translation into Italian of a name commonly given to the type. 
Nashe calls Harvey "a mushrumpe sprung vp in one night" (Vol. 
I, p. 323; cf. also Vol. Ill, p. 109), and in Shialetheia, Satire III, 
we have the lines. 

How like a Musherom art thou quickly growne, 

I knew thee when thou war'dst a tlired-bare gowne.^ 

The special details in the treatment of Fungoso are in general 
fairly fresh, however. His heartbreaking efforts to keep pace with 
Brisk's sviits furnish the most distinctive point in the characteri- 
zation, and I recall no dramatic device of the sort except that 
already cited from Skelton's Magnificence. The scene in which 
Fungoso is surrounded by tradespeople who deliver his finery and 
are paid for it (IV, 5) is more commonplace. There is a scene 
in Captain Stul-eley where Stukeley, who comes from the country 
and neglects law for gallantry, pays his furnishers (11. 543 if.). In 
James IV (lA^, 3) the clown Slipper orders a fine outfit from 
tailor, shoemaker, and cutler, and pays them. The Epistle Dedi- 
catory to Nashe's Lenten Stuffe, also, describes the scene in a gal- 
lant's chamber when he settles his accounts. In Histriomastix, 
again, (III, 1) the ladies and citizens' wives are waited on by 

^In Jonson's work the term mushroom becomes almost a synonym for 
a gull. Of the two typical gulls in Every Man out, one is named Fungoso, 
and the other is called a puck-fist and is classed among 

these mushroom gentlemen, 
That shoot up in a night to place and worship (I, 1, p. 75). 

In the expression "some idle Fungoso" (IV, 1, p. 175) which is applied 
to Asotus, the only typical gull in Cynthia's Revels, the word Fungoso 
merely means a mushroom, I take it, and involves no identification of 
Asotus with Fungoso. The gull Daw of l^ilent Woman is also called a 
mushroom, II, 2. p. 419. According to Gilford, Upton traces this last 
passage to Plautus, Bacehides. IV, 7, 23. Jonson again uses the term 
for an upstart in Catiline, II, 1. 



Every Man out of his Humour 207 

tradespeople and order marvelous jewels and dresses. Jonson 
later opens The Staple of Nexus with a scene in which Pennj^boy 
Junior receives his various tradesmen and settles with them. In 
III, 2, Sordido reads a letter from Fungoso which is signed, 
"Yours, if his own" (repeated in Cynthia's Revels, V, 3, p. 194). 
The signature is evidently in mockery of a commonly affected 
close of euphuistic letters, and is appropriate to Fungoso, who 
reads the Arcadia. Koeppel in Ben Jonson's Wirlmng (p. 67) 
traces the phrase to Euphues, but similar signatures are to be found 
scattered in Greene's works, in A petite Pallace of Pcttie his pleas- 
ure, and in Gascoigne's Adventures of Master F. I. In The 
Woman in the Moon (V, 1, 1. 145), "Yours, as his owne" occurs. 
When the party at the Mitre is broken vip at the end of the play, 
Fungoso, though a guest, is held as a pawn for the score. His 
predicament suggests certain jests of Peele which involve leaving 
dupes as pawns for the reckoning at ordinaries {Shal'espeare Jest- 
Books, Vol. II, pp. 293-297).! 

Sogliardo embodies Jonson's sharpest satire on those who pre- 
tend to gentility merely by reason of wealth. Fungoso, for all his 
intellectual weakness, seems at least capable of appreciating the 
standards of the gallants whom he apes; but Sogliardo is always 
essentially the witless boor. In fact, he is another of the char- 
acters in whom Jonson enforces a fundamental principle so 
strongly that the character becomes a cross between a pure abstrac- 
tion and a type. Sogliardo is almost a personification of igno- 
rance. He is described as "an essential clown" (p. 63) ; "a tame 
rook," fit to be "a constable for . . wit," and "a transparent 
gull" (I, 1, p. 72) ; "one of those that fortune favours" — a favorite 
phrase for a fool (p. 75) ; "this hulk of ignorance" and "a shal- 
low fool" with "no more brain than a butterfly, a mere stuff suit" 
(p. 76). His coat of arms is made to represent his ignorance 
chiefly. The variety of colors suggests the fool's motley, and the 
headless boar, or boor, is interpreted by Carlo as representing "a 
swine Mdthout a head, without brain, wit, anything indeed, ramp- 
ing to gentility" (III, 1, p. 100). Still another analysis of Sogli- 
ardo as Ignorance is put in the mouth of Carlo in IV, 6 (p. 122) : 
"He is a man of fair revenue, and his estate will bear the charge 

^Cf. also GroundiDorke of Conny -catching, in Rogues and Vagabonds 
of Shakspere's Youth, pp. 102, 103. 



208 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

well. Besides, for his other gifts of the mind, or so, why, they 
are as nature lent him them, pure, simple, without any artificial 
drug or mixture of these too threadbare beggarly qualities, learning 
and knowledge, and therefore the more accommodate and gen- 
uine." Apart from the broad types of fools, personifications of 
ignorance are common in the sixteenth century. Ignorance is a 
character in The Four Elements, The Longer thou Livest, and 
Wyt and Science. A good illustration of the situation from the 
opening scene of Every Man out where, on the first appearance of 
Sogliardo, the scholar Macilente exclaims (p. 72), 

'Sblood, why should such a prick-eared hind as this 

Be rich, ha? a fool! such a transparent gull 

That may be seen through! wherefore should he have land, 

Houses, and lordships? O, I could eat my entrails, 

is to be found in a passage of Histriomastix (Act IIT, 11. 310- 
313), wliere Envy, coming to reign after Pride, declares: 

Fat Ignorance, and ramm.ish Barbarisme 
Shall spit and drivell in sweete Learnings face : 
Whilst he, half starv'd in Envie of their power. 
Shall eate his marrow, and him-selfe devoure.^ 

But Sogliardo, though almost an abstraction, is not so primitive 
or simple a type as Ignorance. He is the true gull, mixing with 
his clownish love of the hobby-horse and motions a serious deter- 
mination to take tobacco like a gentleman. His stupidity, how- 
ever, places him with the earlier type of gull like Stephen and 
Labesha. In the epigrams of Davies and Guilpin on the gull, the 
climax stresses his witlessness, which evidently sums up the type 
for both writers. 

A number of points in the characterization of Sogliardo have 
already been mentioned, especially those that illustrate his aspira- 
tions as a gull. His independent tastes are for the hobby-horse 
(II, 1, p. 81) and for news, particularly of the puppet-shows of 
London (II, 1, p. 87). It is as a lover of the marvelous that he 
is captivated by the tales of Shift's exploits (IV, 4). In all these 
respects he represents the English clown. Davies in Epigram 43 
satirizes the somewhat similar tastes of the country-bred Publius, 
who is more interested in the famous bears of Paris Garden than 

»Cf. pp. 160-161 supra. 



Every Man out of his Humour 209 

in his study of law. Sogliardo's insistence upon getting the news 
when he meets Sordido (II, 1, p. 87) is noteworthy as a first indi- 
cation of Jonson's interest in a folly to which he later gave so 
much emphasis. There are many satirical references to news- 
mongers at the end of the sixteenth century, especially in Nashe's 
attack on the Martinists and the Harveys.^ In Sapho and Phao, 
II, 3, Molus accosts Criticus with the question, "What newes?" 
as Sogliardo does Pungoso. Davies, again, in Epigram 40, In 
Afram, has an interesting sketch of the purveyor of news, which 
furnishes a forerunner of Sir Politick Would-be as a newsmonger. 
A still more striking portrait of the type is to be found, however, 
so early as Lodge's characterization of ''Multiplication of words" 
in Wits Miserie (p. 85). 

The coat of arms that Sogliardo procures (III, 1) in pursuance 
of Carlo's advice has already been spoken of as typical of Sogli- 
ardo's character. Such coats of arms are not uncommon in lit- 
erature. The one suggested in "The False Knight" of Erasmus, 
from which Carlo drew his advice, in a measure represents the 
character of the Knight. In Bullein's Dialogue against the Fever 
Pestilence (E. E. T. S., p. 96), an appropriate coat of arms is 
given for Mendax, and in The Three Ladies of London (Hazlitt's 
Dodsley, Vol. W, pp. 350, 351 ) the coat of arms of a thief is 
described. So the old Timon gives the absurd coat of arms of 
Gelasimus (I, 3).^ In regard to a motto for Sogliardo's crest, 

^Cf. Nashe, Vol. 1, pp. 72, 82, 289, 298, 308, 365; Harvey, Vol. I, pp. 
68 ff. and Vol. Ill, p. 18; Tell-Trothes New-yeares Gift, p. 3; Crowley, 
One and Thirty Epigrams, 11. 1113-1140, "Of Inuenters of Straunge Newes." 
Cf. also the following sixteenth century titles: Sack-Full of Newes; 
Newes come from Hell of loi^e unto all her welheloved frendes, by Cop- 
land; Neioes out oif Powles Churchyarde, by Hake; Joy full newes oute of 
the new founde worlde . . . Englished by Jolm Frampton ; Straunge 
Newes out of Ualabria, etc., by Doleta; Strange Newes of the intercepting 
certaine Letters, by Nashe; Greene's News hoth from Heaven and Hell; 
Tarlton's Neivs out of Purgatory; Newes from. Jack Begger (already 
cited) ; etc. 

^Two boars form a part of the coat, along with three asses and three 
thistles. Doubtless the pun on boor is implied here as in Sogliardo's 
coat. The three thistles may denote fruitlessness; they remind one of 
the three thorns, or "spinas," of Poetaster (II, 1), though the resemblance 
is too uncertain to afford any conjecture as to whether Jonson borrowed 
from Timon. The possible combination of .Jonson's two coats of arms 
in Timon is the chief indication I have been able to find, however 
slight, that the play may have come after .Jonson's plays and combined 
details from them. One other indication is that the scene in Timon 
(I, 4) where Fseudocheus instructs Gelasimus how to woo successfully 



210 English Elem.enis in Jonson's Early Comedy 

Puntarvolo suggests (p. 100), ""'Let the word be, Not without mus- 
tard." This probablj' goes back to jSTashe. In Pierce Penilcsse 
(Vol. I, p. 171),. the story is told of a "Eiiffion" who vowed to God 
that if he were delivered from a severe storm at sea, he would 
never again eat haberdine, but "readie to set foote a Land, cryed 
out: not without Mustard, good Lord, not without Mustard." 
Beyond a possible implication that Sogliardo was not to be taken 
without a sauce, there seems to be no especial point to Jonson's 
use of the phrase except that it introduced a bit of nonsense and 
recalled a jest that was probably popular. 

Deliro and Fallace, the only other characters of any importance 
in the play, seem to have fewer conventional traits than is usual 
with Jonson. The motive of a husband's obsequiousness to a 
proud and peevish wife Jonson treated several times afterwards, 
and it became common enough in the drama. Perhaps the best 
forerunners of Deliro and Fallace are to be found in Lyly's 
Woman in the Moon. There is nothing in the half pastoral, half 
mythological figures of Lyly's play to associate them with the Lon- 
don citizen and his wife; but under the influence of the various 
planets Pandora falls into several moods in which she is strongly 
suggestive of Fallace, and the lovers are at times infatuated with 
her after the manner of Deliro. 

Pandora's first mood is one of melancholy controlled by Saturn, 
who wills (I, 1, 11. 148, 149) : 

She shalbe sick with passions of tlie hart, 

Selfvvild, and toungtide, but full fraught with teares. 

And Pandora says of herself (1. 174), 

I grudge and grieue, but know not well whereat. 

Gunopliilus, servant and lover, whose name, like Deliro's, expresses 
his infatuation, is the first to present himself, and he is met with 
railing. Next, the four shepherds put themselves at her service, 
only to be rebuffed in turn. Then Pandora falls to weeping, and 
the lovers sing "to sift that humor from her heart" (1. 221). Ac- 
would more probably have been borrowed from Amorphus's instructions 
to Asotus in Cynthia's Revels than the reverse, for Jonson had, according 
to his habit, been developing the motive through several plays. Cf. The 
Case is Altered, IV, 3 and 4, and Every Man out, Y, 1. The evidence, 
however, is too slight to enable us to determine which of the two plays 
influenced the other. See pp. 168 ff. supra. 



Every Man out of his Humour 211 

cording to a stage direction, "she starteth vp and runs away at 
the end of the Song sa5dng/' 

What songs? what pipes? & fidling haue we here? 
Will you not suffer me to take my rest? 

whereupon one of the lovers in despair cries out (1. 227), 

What shal we do to vanquish her disease? 

In the next mood, which is inspired by Jupiter, Pandora becomes 
proud and aspires to place, but her action is consistent with that 
of the preceding mood. To Jupiter she says (II, 1, 11. 73, 74), 

I tell thee lupiter, Pandoras worth 
Is farre exceeding all your goddesses, 

and to her lovers (1. 148), 

For wot ye well Pandora knowes her worth. 

Mars inspires in her a still more vixenish mood, in which she 
strikes her lovers. One, however, Stesias, still dotes (II, 1, 
1. 230 ff.) : 

But fondling as I am, why grieue I thus? 

Is not Pandora mistris of my life? 

Yes, yes, and euery act of hers is iust. 

Her hardest words are but a gentle winde. 

In the succeeding moods she marries Stesias and then proves 
fickle, setting at naught her husband, who continues to adore her. 
Ultimately she is betrayed to him. At this point, however, all 
similarity between the two plays ends. 

Quite dissimilar as Fallace is to Pandora on the whole, a sur- 
prising amount of what I have just cited from Lyly's play is par- 
alleled in the part of Fallace and Deliro. In II, 2 (p. 91) Deliro 
protests to Macilente: 

I have such a wife! 
So passing fair; so passing-fair-unkind! 
But of such worth, and right to be unkind. 
Since no man can be worthy of her kindness. 



Ay, and she knows so well 
Her own deserts, that when I strive t' enjoy them. 
She weighs the things I do with what she merits; 
And, seeing my worth outweighed so in her graces. 



213 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

She is so solemn, so precise, so froward, 
That no observance I can do to lier 
Can make her kind to me. 

Deliro goes to the greatest pains to gratify her various whims, and 
finds, after all is done, that her humour has changed. In one 
scene (IV, 1, p. Ill), he brings in musicians to play for her, say- 
ing, "0, begin, begin, some sprightly thing. . . . Heaven 
grant it please her." Fallace, however, cries out, "Hey — da ! this 
is excellent! I'll lay my life this is my husband's dotage. . . . 
I know you do nothing but study how to anger me, sir." Shortly 
after, she peevishly leaves his presence, and shuts her door against 
him when he attempts to follow.^ 

As a prosperous London merchant, Deliro is a rather colorless 
figure. Independently of Fallace's attitude to her husband, how- 
ever, she is interestingly characterized as a citizen's wife yearning 
for attention, especially for the notice of gallants. She desires to 
be in fashion and to have friends at court; she regards Brisk as 
the perfection of all that is charming, finally becoming desper- 
ately enamored of him ; she quotes from Euphues, and in other 
ways shows her passion for fads of the fashionable (cf. IV, 1, 
pp. 110, 111 and V, 7, pp. 137, 138). There is a good deal of 
satire on citizens' wives who live in luxury and strive after the 
fashions of the courtly, but I do not recall elsewhere just such 
satire on the longing of these women for gallant lovers. 

Through Cordatus in the induction, Jonson has described Every 
Man out as "strange, and of a particular kind by itself, somewhat 
like Vetits Coma'dia." The phrase Yetus Comcedia would nat- 
urally be interpreted at once as referring to classic comedy, and 
the context seems to support this interpretation. I am tantalized, 
however, by the question whether the reference may not, after all, 
have been to the older forms of English drama. Nashe in The 
Returne of Pasquill twice uses the term in connection with old 
English plays (Vol. I, pp. 92 and 100), and Drummond reports 

^One unimportant point in the treatment of Deliro and Fallace was 
probably suggested by Chaucer's Merchant's Tale and such stories as 
Greenes Vision, where the husband is persuaded that he saw his wife 
on a lover's knee only in a dream or delirium. When Deliro unexpectedly 
finds his wife at the Counter with Brisk, Macilente says (V, 7, p. 138) : 
"Nay, why do you not dote now, signior? methinks you should say it 
were some enchantment, deceptio visus, or so, ha ! If you could persuade 
yourself it were a dream now, 'twere excellent." 



Every Man out of his Humour 313 

Jonson himself as saying that "according to Comedia Vetv^, in 
England the Divell , . . caried away the Vice." At any 
rate, there is little in the structure, the type of incident, or the 
method of characterization to connect Every Man out with classic 
comedy. The characters, though undoubtedly finished from life, 
follow types from English literature, and the allegorical tone of 
the play which results from the emphasis on a mastering humour 
associates Every Man out with the morality. 



CHAPTEE VIII 

CYNTHIA'S REVELS 

The allegorical tendency shown in Every Man out reaches its 
fullest expression for Jonson's early period in Cynthia's Revels.^ 
The plot of Cynthia's Revels as given in the induction is a pure 
allegory, the characters bearing allegorical names and the relations 
existing among them having an allegorical significance, so that the 
reversion of the humour types to the older abstractions is here al- 
most complete. In spite, however, of the fundamental abstraction 
in the characters and the comic exaggeration, the play impresses 
us as perhaps giving a inore searching picture of one segment of 
London life than any of Jonson's earlier comedies. The ordinary 
gallants of Every Man in give way in Every Man out to types that 
belong to a higher social plane, one near that of the court; in 
Cynthia's Revels Jonson has laid his scene entirely in the court 
itself, even studies of the rogue class being omitted except among 
the pages. The characters thus represent fewer walks of life, but 
the study of social trivialities within the narrower sphere is ex- 
haustive, let us hope. 

The induction of Cynthia's Revels, unlike the body of the play, 
is more dramatic than that of Every Man out. The parts of Asper 
and Grex are omitted here, and with them the effort to set the tone 
of the play through a presenter, and the attempt to explain the 
author's art. As a substitute Jonson has been careful to give an 
analysis of the plot of Cynthia's Revels so as to stress the allegory. 
A device similar to that in the most dramatic part of the induc- 
tion to Every Man out — the appearance of Carlo and the debate 
about the prologue — forms the foundation of the induction to 
Cynthia's Revels. In the later play the induction thus has fewer 
elements and is more unified as well as more dramatic. The 
mimicry of audience and playwright that Jonson indulges in 

^Acted in 1600 according to tlie Folio, doubtless after the lease of 
Blackfriars to Henry Evans on September 2, 1600. That Cynthia's Revels 
was performed late in the year is indicated by Jonson's reference in the 
induction to the fact that "the umhrw or ghosts of some three or four 
plays departed a dozen years since, have been seen walking on your stage 
here." Apparently the house opened in the fall with the production of 
old plays before Cynthia's Revels and other new plays were secured. 



Cynthia's Revels 215 

through the chiklren is more appropriate than the expository and 
indignant manner of Asper. While this new induction, especially 
as it repeats themes of Evertj Man out, seems to be merely a de- 
velopment of earlier devices for inductions, it nevertheless has 
fewer connections than the preceding play with the common de- 
vices of playwrights who used the induction before Jonson. The 
two fundamental elements, the appearance of certain actors and 
the use of the debate, had not before been combined in the induc- 
tion so far as I know. The Downfall of Robert Earl of Itunting- 
ton uses the appearance of actors beforehand, who discuss their 
parts and thus pique the curiosity of the audience by suggesting 
the nature of the play,^ but the purpose here, as in most of the 
early inductions, is to set the tone of the piece.- The device of a 
contest in the induction was also for the most part merely a more 
dramatic way than the old prologue, chorus, or other such device 
furnished of introducing the commanding genius or dominant 
tone of the play. But Nashe had used the spectator in the in- 
duction for the expression of criticism, and the contest type of in- 
duction also became in A Warning for Fair Women a notable 
means of allowing the author to give direct expression to his criti- 
cal views in regard to the drama. Jonson utilized the induction 
almost purely for such criticism after Every Man out, and even 
in Every Man out the function of the induction is largely critical. 
A further step toward Jonson's induction in Cynthia's Revels is 
found in the induction of The True Tragedy of Richard III, 
where Truth and Poetry enter upon a discussion that serves not 
so much to set the tone of the play as to furnish the ground for 
introducing what the author wishes to tell the audience in regard 
to the occasion or plot. That at least the critical tendencies if 
not the devices of these earlier inductions had attracted Jonson is 
shown by the fact that the prologue of Every Man in and in part 
the induction of Every Man out echo the critical material of earlier 
inductions.^ 

The material in the induction of Cynthia's Revels is compara- 
tively fresh, largely because it is not general but consists in great 

^This discussion of parts in Munday's play is more like the induction 
of Marston's Antonio and Mellida. 

^Cf. pp. 146-148 supra for a discussion of various early inductions. 
'Cf. pp. 142, 143, and 146-148 supra. 



216 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

part of such direct and specific attacks on tlie follies of spectators 
and pla\'Avrights as perhaps no other dramatist dared to utter. Fol- 
lowing the quarrel of the children over the speaking of the pro- 
logue, comes the plot of the play. Next one of the children mocks 
the gallants who sit upon the stage smoking and flouting actors. 
In Every Man out Jonson three times refers to those who sit on 
or over the stage, with hits at such abuses as smoking, gay dress- 
ing, and mocking of actors (Induction, p. 68; I, 1, p. 73; II, 1, 
p. 88). In Cynthia's Bevels the satire is more fully elaborated. 
The satirists had already begun to attack these abuses before Jon- 
son took them up, Davies in Epigrams 3 and 28 and Guilpin in 
Epigram 53 of Slnaletlieia. Hall also seems to have an allusion 
to the custom and to absurd critics in a passage in which he 
satirizes the abuses of tragedy, though the tone is entirely unlike 
Jonson's {Virgidemiarum, I, 3). Earlier the part of Will Sum- 
mer in Summer's Last Will and Testament had given Nashe's in- 
direct satire on the custom of flouting actors, and Summer's criti- 
cism of JSTashe's prologue as "scuruy"' illustrates Jonson's point in 
the induction of Cynthia's Revels that "one miscalls all by the 
name of fustian, that his grounded capacity cannot aspire to." 
Jonson next attacks pla3^rights for obscenity, for borrowing their 
jests, and for boasting of rapidity of work. The charge of im- 
modesty and obscenity in plays was common among those who at- 
tacked the drama. Whetstone in the dedication of Promos and 
Cassandra, for example, criticises the lasciviousness of Italian, 
French, and Spanish plays. The attack on old jests was also be- 
coming frequent. It occurs in A Warning for Fair Women (11. 
33, 34), where Tragedy speaks of Comedy's having 

Some odd ends of old jests scrap'd up together, 
To tickle shallow unjudicial ears; 

and in Histriomastix (III, 11. 206, 207), where Chrisoganus scores 

those who 

load the stage with stuff 
E,akt from the rotten imbers of stall jests. 

With these lines compare Jonson's: "Besides, they could wish 
your poets would leave to be promoters of other men's jests, and 
to way-lay all the stale apothegms, or old books, they can hear of, 
in print or otherwise, to farce their scenes withal." Jonson's 



Cynthia's Revels 217 

criticism of the Children of the Chapel for presenting old plays 
echoes a passage on the Children of Paul's from Jack Drum's En- 
tertainment (V, 11. 111-114), cited by Gifford: 

I, and they had good Phiies. But they produce 
Such mustie fopperies of antiquitie, 
And doe not sute the humorous ages backs, 
With clothes in fashion. 

Finally, Jonson attacks under five classes injudicious critics among 
the auditors: the one whose only claim to wit lies in his clothes, 
the one who pronounces the old Hieronimo the only "judiciously 
penned play in Europe," etc. Much of this is repeated from 
Every Man in and Every Man out, and part of it goes back to 
Nashe.^ Marston, also, in the section introducing The Scourge 
of Villainy sketches briefly the different types who dare pass judg- 
ment on his work. 

The general plot of Cynthia's Bevels is composed of a large 
number of diverse elements, although far more attention is given 
to character analysis than to incident, so that the play is even 
more devoid of movement than is Every Man out. In the pro- 
logue Jonson claims originality for the work: 

In this alone, his Muse her sweetness hath. 
She shuns the print of any beaten path; 
And proves new ways to come to learned ears. 

There is something appropriate in the expression "learned ears" 
in connection with a play that probalily suggested to the well read 
many diverse types of literature. Indeed, the passage was perhaps 
not intended to mean tliat Jonson used no literary material but 
rather that, in the combination of elements and in the tone of the 
whole, the work was new. It may be, also, that Jonson was in- 
fluenced by a growing convention of claiming originality on the 
part of those who are not always original. Sidney declares in 
Sonnet 74, 

I am no pick-purse of another's wit. 

Drayton, in the opening of his sequence Idea (1594), makes the 
same claim, repeating Sidney's line. Nashe in Strange Newes 
(Works of Nashe, Vol. I, p. 319) boasts of the vein of his "owne 

^Cf. p. 127 supra. 



218 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

begetting" which "cals no man father in England but my selfe." 
And yet all of these men would have considered skilful adapta- 
tion not borrowing but merely the imitation that is the mark of 
the well trained writer. 

In Cynthia's Revels there are four fairly distinct lines of treat- 
ment. First, there is the pastime of courtship with the fancies that 
had gi'own up around it, an element representing in the main Jon- 
son's adaptation of court of love conventions to current fashions 
in courtly love. It accounts for much of the framework and for a 
certain amount of the mythological and allegorical interest in the 
play. Second, a still larger part of the mythological element in 
Cynthia's Revels is probably to be explained by the influence of 
the mythological play, which became so prominent in the hands of 
Lyly during tlie latter part of the sixteenth century. Third, there 
is the motive of the conflict between virtues and vices, which fur- 
nishes the most important part of the allegory, and out of which 
grows tlie grouping and the balancing of the characters, though 
Jonson's interest in humours also seems to have affected the group- 
ing. Naturally certain conventions of the morality plays are util- 
ized for handling dramatically the conflict between good and evil. 
Jonson in addition has made the vices and virtues of Cynthia's 
Revels in part Aristotelian. Fourth, there are individual studies 
in which the abstractions are made vital by details from contem- 
porary fads and fashions that are appropriate to the folly studied 
and emphasize the primary inclination, or humour. In adapting 
these phases of the play to each other, Jonson would naturally 
modify practically everything that he has borrowed. Moreover, 
he has enriched the main elements of his work by minor borrow- 
ings here and there, the most important of which are the mock 
tournament, or duello, as a form of entertainment, the allegory 
of money as distrilnited by Fortune to fools, and especially cer- 
tain conventions of older plays, such as the Diana-versus-Cupid 
intrigue. An attempt will be made to follow in order the four 
chief lines of study and to suggest wlierever it is most convenient 
the mJnor elements that enter into this complex drama. 

There are distinct traces in Cynthia's Revels of court of love 
conventions. Indeed, to my mind, they form the basis of the play. 
In them is perhaps to be seen the extension of the popular court of 
love ideas into the general literature and the pastimes of the 



Cynthia's Revels 319 

Renaissance, and perhaps, also, some of the kinship is to be 
attributed to accident. On the other hand, from the time when 
Jonson studied the knightly procedure of Puntarvolo, an interest 
in medipval conventions of chivalry apparently grew upon him, 
and gradually this interest became centered in the court of love 
as an excellent device for satirizing women. Certainly throughout 
Jon son's work groups of women with social pretensions are treated 
under the form of organizations by means of which contemporary 
social follies are satirized. In The Silent Woman the Ladies 
Collegiates^ with their President (I, 1, p. 406), their pretence 
to wit (III, 2, p. 432), their instructions to Epicoene in regard to 
what she shall demand of her husband as her privilege (IV, 2), 
their rules in amatory pursuits (IV, 2), and the accounts given 
Morose of the customs, claims, and privileges of women (II, 1) — 
here become vices — seem to indicate the court of love machinery 
carried into the social life of women. Again in The Devil is an 
Ass, when Wittipol dressed as a Spanish lady comes to Lady Tail- 
bush, supposedly from her friends at court (IV, 1, p. 253), in 
honor of her projects for an improved fucus in the service of her 
sex, the plan to hold a sitting of the "academy" or "school" (III, 
1, p. 248; III, 3, p. 250; IV, 1, p. 256), of which the Spanish 
lady, described as a "mistress of behaviour" (II, 3, p. 239), is 
called "lady-president" ; the elaborate discussion of perfumes and 
fucuses; Lady Eitherside's interest in the customs of love and her 
scorn of being loved only by her husband ; and finally the opinions 
expressed as to proper conduct in woman's gallantry and the 
proper messengers in love affairs (IV, 1) represent more clearly 
Jonson's satire on women's vices through the burlesque of court 
of love conventions. 

Jonson's still more extensive use of the varied machinery tradi- 
tionally connected with the academies and courts of love is to 

^The term college is used in English for the group of women at the 
court of love as early at least as Lydgate's Reson and Sensuallyte. 
Venus says to the poet in regard to his admittance into the Garden of 
Deduit (11. 2691 ff.) : 

For thou shalt han a priuelege 
For to be of my college, 
Amonge folkys amerovise. 

De Arte Honeste Amandi of Andreas Capellanus {ca. 1200) has the fic- 
tion of a "dominarum collegia" dwelling with Cupid. 



220 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

he found later in The New Inn^ In this play the court of love is 
formally organized with Prudence as "queen-regent" and "sov- 
ereign of love" and "of the day's sport" (I, 1, p. 348; II, 2, p. 
355; II, 2, p. 365; etc.). Frances is called before the court on 
charge of heresy in love; Lovel as appellant tells the "infidel" 
what love is; the refractory lady follows the usual formula of re- 
penting, and suggests the possible penance of a pilgrimage to 
Love's image to say penitential verses "out of Chaucer's Troilus 
and Cressid" or of making offering at the shrine of Venus; and 
finally the Queen commands the culprit to forfeit a kiss (III, 2). 
Though the trial before the court of love is usually described as 
legal, Jonson in The New Inn has made it conform more closely 
to the trial by combat before the ecclesiastical court, and the oaths 
taken by Lovel are parodies of the combatant's oaths, as Giiford 
and Tennant point out.' Indeed, the whole trial in The Neiv Inn, 
with the talk of heresy, penances, etc., echoes the ecclesiastical, and 
is merely an extension of the many court of love parodies of ritual- 
istic ceremonies. Moreover, Lovel's description of his passions 
and pains in love (I, 1) and the elaborate analysis of love that 
he makes before the court (III, 2) have many points suggestive 
of the rules of love as given in court of love poems, though 
Lovel's analysis often follows the tradition not of Ovid but of 
Plato. ^ The later argument before the "sovereign of Love" (IV, 
3, pp. 373 fl^.) on Valour is more like the discussion of set themes 
.engaged in by groups of the courtly in their pastimes. Finally, 
in V, 1 (p. 380), Frances promises that, if her love speeds, she 
will use her fortunes reverently and religiously, and adds : 

Love and his mother, 
I'll build them several churches, shrines, and altars, 
And over head I'll have, in the glass windows, 
The story of this day be painted, round, 
For the poor laity of love to read : 
I'll make myself their book, nay, their example, 
To bid them take occasion by the forelock, 
And play no after-games of love hereafter. 

'Cf. Prof. Fletcher's discussion in Journal of Comparative Literature, 
1903, pp. 131-135, and Mr. Tennant's introduction to his edition of The 
'New Inn, pp. Ivi-lxii. 

^Cf. pp. 199 f. supra for Jonson's preceding use of these oaths. 
^Cf. pp. xliv-xlix of Tennant's introduction to The New Inn. 



Cynthia's Bevels 221 

There can be no question that Frances is here describing the usual 
temple or palace of Love in the court of love poems, one of the 
commonest features of which was the symbolic paintings. In 
The Court of Love (11. 229 ff.), 

The temple shoon witn windows all of glas, 
Bright as the day, with many a fair image; 

and there are depicted the stories of Dido and Aeneas, of Arcite 
and Anelida, and of many who suffered martyrdom for love.^ 

That social groups organized primarily for the discussion of 
love existed in essence if not with the formality indicated in Jon- 
son's satire, is not to be doubted. Castiglione's Courtier, Gas- 
coigne's Adventures of AI aster F. I., Lyly's Euphues, Greene's 
Tritameron of Love, Ewphues, his Censure to Philautus, and 
Mourning Garment, Lodge's Margarite of America, and various 
other works written between 1580 and 1600 show groups of the 
courtly at social gatherings discussing phases of love and of char- 
acter, and often organizing with a presiding officer for the purpose.^ 

^Prof. Fletcher in The Journal of Comparative Literature, 1903, pp. 
120 flf., has shown that under Charles I Platonic love became the fad of 
the courtly and that The 'Nexc Inn is one of the early works which voices 
the new passion. It is an interesting fact that in this play, along with 
conceptions antagonistic to the court of love tradition, Jonson has used 
the court of love setting in its clearest form. Prof. Fletcher also points 
out the fact that the attitude of James I to women was scornful while 
that of Charles I was romantic, and that as a result the idealization of 
women under the cult of Platonic love gained prominence in the reign of 
Charles. In this connection it may be worth noting that, whereas in 
The Silent Woman and The Devil is an Ass, written during the reign of 
James, the groups of women organized for social power are used for the 
bitterest satire on the vices of the sex, The 'New Inn, early in the reign 
of Charles, comes as near as Jonson could come to idealizing love, — and 
that through the conventional organization which even before Elizabeth 
died had been used in Cynthia's Revels for satire. It is true that under 
Elizabeth an idealization of love through the application of Platonic 
ideas is met with in Spenser and Sidney. Cf. Prof. Fletcher's article, 
"Did Astrophel Love Stella?" Mod. Phil.,'Vo\. V, pp. 253 ff. But by the 
time of Cynthia's Revels such an ideal had probably degenerated into a 
popular fad which had become the property of the vicious. If the honor 
paid to the Virgin Queen had much to do with the vogue of the cult of 
chivalric love, doubtless the flippancy of the Queen aided in making the 
cult merely a sham. 

=Cf. Bond's Works of Lyly, Vol. II, pp. 162 flf. and 522. See also Vol. 
I, p. 412 for a challenge at a tilt in which it is maintained that "Loue 
is worse than hate." A question of love casuistry, "whether riches were 
better than loue," formed the theme of an entertainment in the time of 
Henry VIII. in which "two persones plaied a dialog" and "six knightes 
fought a fair battail." See Brotanek, Die engl. Maskenspiele, p. 86. 



233 English Elements in Jonsons Early Comedy 

It is hardly to be questioned, also, that gallants in England af- 
fected these debates in their gatherings as they did many other 
conventions of medieval love and gallantry. There is scarcely a 
phase of Eenaissance love poetry influenced by the Italian and 
French that is not steeped in the spirit of the medieval court of 
love conceptions, and, if this poetry itself can not be taken as 
evidence on the point, the satires and such plays as Cynthia's 
Revels leave little doubt that the manners and fads connected with 
the court of love were often followed in actual life. 

For the beginning of Jonson's interest in the machinery of the 
court of love we must go back to Cynthia's Revels. Here are sug- 
gested practically all the court of love elements that appear in the 
later plays, and even more; but they are mingled with so many 
other phases of allegory and are touched so vaguely that one is in 
perpetual doubt as to their origin. Cynthia's Revels indicates an 
extensive knowledge of the more general literary conventions of 
the court of love, though I can point out no single work preceding 
the play which might have furnished Jonson his material. So far 
as I know, certain English poems, or French poems translated 
into English, serve best to illustrate the court of love elements in 
Cynthia's Revels. Thus The Romaunt of the Rose, published in 
Chaucer's works, and Les Echecs Amoureux, a part of which 
makes up Lydgate's Reson and Scnsuallyte, reveal the treatment 
of court of love ideas with the addition of new motives and ma- 
chinery in the interest of allegory; and they deal with the con- 
ventions much in the free way of Jonson. These two poems with 
The Court of Love and other pseudo-Chaucerian pieces would fur- 
nish a sufficient basis for much of Jonson's allegory. It is not 
probable that Jonson knew Lydgate's poem, as it had not been 
published in 1600, hut much of the pseudo-Chaucerian literature 
was of course familiar to him through Thynne's Stow's, or 
Speght's edition of Chaucer. Indeed, it is probable enough that 
Speght's edition in 1598, with its large number of court of love 
poems, influenced Cynthia's Revels directly. 

In attempting to point out the kinship between Jonson's play 
and court of love conventions, I have chosen to instance, on ac- 
count of their cumulative value, many very slight or questionable 
parallels as well as some important ones. At the outset I should 
like to express my indebtedness to Professor Neilson's Origins and 



Cynthia's Revels 223 

Sources of the Court of Love. For the material outside of the 
works that are readily accessible to the English student, I have 
been forced to rely entirely on the analyses which he gives of the 
court of love poems. 

Cynthia's Bevels opens with the coming of Cupid to practice in 
disguise in Diana's court, a motive that I shall mention later. He 
meets Mercury, who has been sent on an errand quite in keeping 
with the spirit of tlie court of love — to allow Echo to express her 
passion for Narcissus. To Mercury Cupid explains the occasion 
with the words : "Diana, in regard of some black and envious 
slanders hourly breathed against her, for her divine justice on 
Acteon . . . hath here in the vale of Gargaphie, proclaimed a 
solemn revels ... in which time it shall be lawful for all sorts 
of ingenious persons to visit her palace, to court her nymphs, to 
exercise all variety of generous and noble pastimes." In addition, 
Diana is to justify herself. The Acteon charge, however, plays no 
real part in the plot, and the court is in complete possession of 
the amorous gallants and nymphs until Diana's appearance in the 
last act. 

Since Cynthia's Revels is a compliment to Elizabeth, the court 
is that of Diana, arid Jonson has had to modify the situation so as 
to allow the court of love group to enter. The association of Diana 
with the court of love as in Cynthia's Revels is not unusual, how- 
ever. Naturally, in certain of the poems that bring out the con- 
trast between love and cold chastity, the court of Diana and that 
of Venus or Cupid both appear. The contrast of course is in- 
evitable. Thus in Douglas's Police of Honour, the poet — who first 
sees Acteon torn by the hounds, suggestive enough of the charges 
against Diana mentioned at the opening of Cynthia's Revels — 
views the court of Diana and next of Venus as they pass to the 
Palace of Honor. In Lydgate's Reson and Sensuallyte and in its 
source, Les Ecliecs Amoureux, Diana appeals to the poet against 
Venus and her court, but the poet proceeds, notwithstanding, to 
the "Garden of Deduit." The temples of both Diana and Venus 
are described in Chaucer's Knightes Tale, as in Boccaccio. Again 
in The Flower and the Leaf, Diana leads the virtuous court, and 
the followers of Flora represent types of idleness and folly, a con- 
trast of groups which we find in Cynthia's Revels. Very naturally 
the tendency to exalt chastity in the figure of Diana, even in 



224 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

literature utilizing the court of love machiner}^, became more strik- 
ing during the reign of the Virgin Queen. ^ 

In the opening scene, covering the first act, the setting is ap- 
propriate for the court of love. The place is a grove containing 
the fountain of Narcissus, or Self-Love. The dream setting that 
is so popular in connection with the court of love is always de- 
scribed elaborately as a garden with trees, birds, fountains, streams, 
etc. In Le Roman de la Rose the court is set in a meadow with 
trees and fountains, and the Fountain of Love, fatal to Narcissus, 
is described in detail, tlie story of Narcissus and Echo being re- 
hearsed also. Guillaume de Lorris has explained the power of this 
fountaiji to make all who look in it fall in love as fully as Jonson 
in Cynthia's Revels has described its power to make all who drink 
of it dote upon themselves. In a number of other poems, the 
fountain is associated with the court of love, as Narcissus often 
is.- Of the poems that I know, the one most suggestive of con- 
ventionality in Jonson's handling of the fountain is Lydgate's 
Reson and Sensuallyte. In warning the poet against the Garden 
of Deduit, Diana tells of the poisonous fountains (11. 3804 ff.). 
Some of them are "ful of sorwe and dool" to him who drinks of 
them, and others cause one who looks in to be ravished with his 
own image (11. 3S3o-384:6). »She especially speaks of Narcissus as 
a victim of tlie enchanted wells, and later a long description is 
given of the well of Narcissus and of its marvels (11. 5659-5790). 
The description is favorable in point of view, the water being 
praised for its clearness, its pleasing taste, and its incomparable 
sweetness of odor (11. 5735 ff.). So Amorphus first and the other 
gallants later praise the water of the Fountain of Self-Love 
{Cynthia's Revels, I, 1, p. 153 and IV, 1, p. 181). 

At the end of the first scene, the traveler Amorphus appears at 
the well, drinks of its water, falls even more inordinately in love 
with himself, and then passes on to the court, where later his praise 
of the well puts the other courtiers into a fever of impatience till 

^Cf. Neilson, Origins and Sources of the Court of Love, p. 266. 

-Cf. Le Dit de la Fontaine Amoureuse; Deschamp's Le Lay du Desert 
d' Amours ; L' Hospital d' Amours. Cf. also Prof. Neilson's index under 
Narcissus. In 1572 a play called Narcissus was acted before Elizabeth. 
Cf. Feuillerat, Documents relating to the Office of the Revels in the Time 
of Queen Elizabeth, p. 145. Possibly some details that afterward filtered 
into Cynthia's Revels met here. The academic Narcissus of 1601-2 has a 
number of conventional details in common with Cynthia's Revels. 



Cynthia's Bevels 225 

they also drink of its water. In the second act^ which opens at 
the court, Hedon and Anaides enter devising compliments and 
oaths for the presence of their mistresses, an exercise which at 
least contains a hint of the lover's duty to study means of honor- 
ing and complimenting his lady. Later in this scene somewhat 
closer parallels begin. Amorphus leads Asotus into the court, 
telling him that he is "now within the regard of the presence," 
and begins to instruct him, among other things, how he must 
practice the face of the courtier elementary, "one but newly en- 
tered, or as it were in the alphabet, or ut-re-mi- fa-sol-la of court- 
ship." Later the four court nymphs appear : Moria, the- guar- 
dian of the nymphs, whose life has been given to court gallantry 
and pretence to wit; Argnrion, "of a most wandering and giddy 
disposition," who will "run from gallant to gallant"; Philautia, 
proud and self-centered; and Phantaste, fickle and wavering. In 
another scene (IV, 1), the nymphs' interest in love comes out. 
Moria's gi'eat wish is to laiow all secret scandal; Philautia's, to 
have sovereignty over many lovers ; and Phantaste's, to be all 
kinds of creatures and prove all kinds of suitors.^ Act III dis- 
covers Amorphus consoling Asotus for his tirst failure in court- 
ship and warning him that audacity is needed. After further in- 
structions (III, 1 and 3), Amorphus brings Asotus into the pres- 
ence of the ladies, and bids him woo Argurion (IV, 1). Asotus 
addresses himself to her immediately. Meanwhile Cupid has shot 
his arrows into Argurion's breast, and she becomes enamored of 
him, promising to reward him on condition that he be "faithful 
and kind" to her. Then follow certain courtly games, and at the 
end Hedon sings of the kiss and Amorphus of his mistress's glove. 
The details cited from these four acts are all dimly suggestive 
of court of love poetry. Amorphus's office as guide and in- 
structor of the newly introduced lover is usually held by a woman, 
though in Die Minnehurg men have the function. In The Court 
of Love, the lover at his entrance is met by Philobone, the Queen's 
chamberer. A part of Philobone's instruction is that it is "hot 

^In some respects Philautia and Phantaste are repeated in Frances, 
the central figure of the court of love in The New Inn. Of her it is 
said that she "hath an ambitious disposition to be esteemed the mistress 
of many servants, but love none" (Argument, p. 337), and that she is 
"phantastical : thinks nothing a felicity but to have a multitude of ser- 
vants, and be called mistress by them" ( Characterism, p. 339). Frances, 
however, is not sensual but Platonic. 



226 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

corage" which '■^spedeth" in the affairs of the court. The lover's 
first wooing is a failure, but later Rosial relents, charging him 
to keep the statutes. In The Romatmt of the Rose, L'Amant, enter- 
ing the garden, is invited by Courtesy to join the revelers, among 
whom is the God of Love, though not in disguise; and Love shoots 
L'Amant with his arrows (11. 1714 ff.). The various allegorical 
characters are described as in Cynthia's Revels and The Court of 
Love. The poem, however, passes into a long account of contest 
unlike the simple story of one failure followed by quick accep- 
tance of the recruit which we find in Cynthia's Revels. In Reson 
and Sensuallyte, the Garden of Deduit is especially described as 
a place where games are played, and the lover's pursuit of his 
mistress takes the form of a game of chess. Other slight general 
parallels to court of love poetry might be given, but to note any of 
them is worth while only on account of the additional indication 
of kinship that they furnish. 

The four nymphs with their veiled sensuality and their hinted 
organization suggestive of later colleges are unlike anything in the 
poems just cited. A number of court of love poems show such ele- 
ments, however. The Romaricimontis Concilium., in which an 
assembly of ladies is held for the discussion of love, suggests this 
group.^ "The doorkeeper was that Sibilia who had been a soldier 
of Venus from her tender years, and had without reluctance done 
whatever Love commanded," a description that fits Moria admir- 
ably. The name Sibilia itself seems appropriate to a woman, like 
Moria, of somewhat advanced years. Moria's function as "guar- 
dian," however, is nearer that of a presiding officer, and in this 
respect she corresponds to the cardinalis dotnina of this poem. 
In reply to the cardinalis domina, who had been sent by the God 
of Love "to inquire into the lives of those who were present," 
"Elisabet de Granges rose and stated that they served Love as well 
as they could. 'Nothing that he wishes displeases us, and if we 
neglect anything, it is unwittingly. Thus we choose to keep no 
regular bond with any man, nor do we know any unless he be of 
our order.' "- The utterances of Pliilautia and Phantaste suggest 
ideals akin to those of Elisabet. The rest of the poem, with its 

^Here and elsewhere I quote from Prof. Neilson's analyses of tlie poems. 
^From much of the court of love literature one would gatlier that the 
rules of fidelity applied to lover rather than to mistress. 



Cynthia's Revels 22T 

debate on clerk? and knights as lovers, does not concern us except 
in the parody of the ritual to be mentioned later. 

The long fifth act of Cynthia's Revels introduces the most com- 
plicated elements of Jonson's allegory, and especially the mock 
duello of the second scene shows interesting traces of court of love 
conventions. The Quarto of Cynthia's Revels, published in 1601, 
lacks a large part of this last act, so that much of the material 
most valuable for our purpose cannot with certainty be ascribed 
to the period of Jonson's work with which we are concerned. I 
have disregarded this fact, however, for I believe that the longer 
form was the original form, or at least was earlier than Poetaster.. 
In the section omitted from the Quarto occurs the mock duello 
with the challenge at the four weapons of courtly ceremony; only 
here do Mistress Downfall and her husband appear; and here the 
hostility of the courtiers to Crites is treated most fully. This 
omitted section has apparently the bitterest personal satire, also, 
and the most daring attacks on the pastimes of the court. It is 
not inherently probable, I think, that this part was written after 
Poetaster, for Mistress Downfall furnishes a first study for the 
character of Chloe, and the efforts of the pseudo-gallants and 
poetasters to disgrace Crites foreshadow the hostility to Horace. 
Soiiromastix (11. 1654 f.) also contains a possible hint that the 
omitted portion of Cynthia's Revels had appeared on the stage be- 
fore Dekker's play was written. Tucca, in bullying Horace's 
parasite, Asinius Bubo, asks him if he will fight, and calling for- 
ward his own boy, — who apparently has a number of weapons, as 
he entered "laden with swords and bucklers," — says to Asinius, "I 
challenge thee thou slender Gentleman, at foure sundrie weapons." 
This may be merely a hit of absurdity, but the whole scene is a 
burlesque on Jonson, and in this point we may have a hit at Jon- 
son's "four choice and principal weapons" of courtship.^ 

The scene of Cynthia's Revels in which the duello occurs (V, 2) 
opens with Amorphus still instructing his novice Asotus prepara- 
tory to making him "master in the noble and subtile science of 
courtship" (IV, 1, p. 182). Amorphus instructs him in the three 
ways of giving the dor by wearing of colors, and in such "im- 

^But cf. Mod. Lang. Pull.. Vol. XIII (1898), p. Ill, for a challenge at 
ten weapons given by George Silver and narrated in his Paradoxes of 
Defence, 1599. 



228 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

brocatas in courtship" as the bitter bob in wit. During the dis- 
cussion of colors Araorphus h^ys down for the guidance of Asotus 
the general principle that "it is the part of every obsequious ser- 
vant, to be sure to have daily about him copy and variety of colours, 
to be presently answerable to any hourly or half-hourly change in 
his mistress's revolution." Then master and novice pass on to 
the assembly where the duello occurs. It will be noticed that the 
duello is organized in many respects as a court of love, though 
numerous other conventions that enter in obscure the relation. 
Morphides acts as doorkeeper, or porter. A citizen and his wife 
press for entry, and the wife, Mistress Downfall, is admitted, but 
the citizen is told, "Husbands are not allowed here, in truth" 
(V, 2, p. 186). Amorphus, grandmaster of the ceremony, then 
distributes gloves as "properly accommodate to the nuptials of my 
scholar's haviour to the lady Courtship"; the challenge of Asotus 
is read, with the announcement of the weapons and the prizes; 
and Mori a, who is later succeeded by Philautia and Phantaste, is 
throned in state as "lady sentinel." After a slight delay, Crites 
enters introducing Mercury, disguised as a Frenchman, to answer 
the challenge. Amorphus himself engages the monsieur at the 
four chosen weapons of courtly grace. At the end of each contest, 
the judges, Hedon and Anaides, give their decision, and the "lady 
sentinel" announces the prize. In preparation for the third bout, 
a tailor, a barber, a perfumer, etc. are introduced, — and of course 
one receives a beating, — and the contestants bedeck themselves 
elaborately on the stage as a burlesque on the array of the fash- 
ionable gallant. In connection with the perfumej Mercury signifi- 
cantly quotes. 

May it ascend, like solemn sacrifice, 
Into the nostrils of the Queen of Love! 

During the closing trial at courtship, Amorphus by changing 
colors with the change of mistress attempts to give Mercury the 
dor, but, as Mercury is playing without colors, Amorphus himself 
is disgraced. Finally Crites and Anaides engage in one test, and 
Anaides is flouted. 

The whole description in this scene is filled with technical terms 
that belong to the art of the duello, as GifEord points out, so that 
the most obvious parody is of course that of the duel. The pro- 
cedure, however, is a dramatization of the rules of courtship, tak- 



Cynthia's Revels 329 

ing the form apparently of a burlesque on contemporary customs 
of gallants. A possible source for such a combination in satire 
will be taken up later.^ The connection of the duello with the 
court of love is not conventional so much as natural, and for 
Jonson the substitution of a form of trial by combat for the ordi- 
nary trial of lovers before the court of love meant no more, per- 
haps, than the association of kindred things. Closely related always 
to court of love allegory is romance, with its chivalric exalta- 
tion of women and with its tiltings, tourneys, and various forms of 
combat. In The Flower and the Leaf, there is jousting between 
the knights of Diana. In Le Boman de la Rose, romance has en- 
tered into the allegory, and battle after battle is described in 
terms of chivalry as symbolic of courtship. In Thibaut's Roman 
de la Poire (Neilson, pp. 56, 57), after an arming suggestive of 
the elaborate dressing and perfuming of Amorphus and Mercury, 
there is a tournament between the traitors and those loyal to love. 
The last two poems, however, represent the combat as a conflict 
between love and other forces rather than as a trial of skill in 
courtship. Such also are the battles in Dunbar's Golden Targe, 
Huon de Mery's Tornoiement d'Antechrist, etc. But in Florance 
et Blanche flor (Neilson, pp. 36, 37) the knight-versus-clerk debate 
is settled by a combat between two champions, the nightingale and 
the parrot. 

With the trouvere jeu parti of the puys d'amour in Northern 
France we have a much closer approach in form to the duel scene 
of Cynthia's Revels. Professor Neilson describes such a contest in 
part as follows (p. 246) : 

After mass and the singing of sacred music, the crowd entered a hall. 
On an elevation sat the president, the judges, and other important per- 
sons. Hymns to the Virgin, love songs, and finally jeux partis were 
presented to the audience; the subjects of these last being the passion 
of love and the duties of marriage. One poet gave the challenge, an- 
other took it up, and sometimes three, rarely four, engaged in the contest, 
the challenger naming a judge. Sometimes each side named a judge, and 
rarely there were three. These gave the decisions, the crowd merely 
looking on; and crowns of flowers or of silver were awarded to the win- 
ners, who gained thus the privileges of ( 1 ) being called "Sire," etc. 

We have in Cynthia's Revels the presiding officer and the judges, 
'Cf. pp. 233, 234 infra. 



230 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

the awarding of prizes, etc., and Asotus challenges in order to win 
the rank of "master." It may be that such courtly procedure as 
that of the jeux partis was carried into the fashionable duello. 
Undoubtedly the love conventions of the Middle Ages influenced 
customs and literature in the Renaissance far more penetratingly 
than we can ever determine. 

Much of the duel scene in Cynthia's Bevels is suggestive of the 
rules for behavior in love. The resemblances here, however, are 
perhaps no more striking than in the earlier scenes of this play or 
in Brisk's courtship of Saviolina. We can hardly with confidence 
say more than that in the worship of woman growing out of 
chivalry, an elaboration of dress and manners as suitable for win- 
ning her favor became customary in the Eenaissance and was 
often emphasized by gallants with an affectation that reminds us 
of rules of love in the Middle Ages. The statement of Amorphus 
that the lover must "be presently answerable to any hourly or half- 
hourly change in his mistress's revolution" gives the fundamental 
law of a lover's devotion to his mistress in court of love poetry. 
In The Court of Love there are such expressions as 



and 



Thou niayst no wyse hit taken to disdayn, 

To put thee humbly at her ordinaunce (11. 374 f. ), 

Give her sovereintee, 
Her appetyt f olow in all degree ( 11. 433 f . ) . 



Similar expressions occur in Ovid and in most of the medieval 
writers on love. The "scholar's haviour" is of course the impor- 
tant thing. In The Court of Love, again, the eleventh statute 
demands that the lover know signs with eye and finger, soft smiles, 
low coughs, and sighs — conventions of flirtation which are empha- 
sized in the prizes of Cynthia's Revels. The eighteenth statute of 
the same poem urges that the lover 

Be jolif, fresh, and fete, with thinges newe, 
Courtly with maner, this is all thy due, 
Gentill of port, and loving clenlinesse (11. 473 ff. ). 

Le Roman de la Rose is more explicit, mentioning good dress, 
merriment, riding, pursuit of arms, singing, dancing, playing 
musical instruments, making "songes and complayntes," bestowing 
gifts, etc. (11. 2254 ff. of the Chaucerian translation), so that we 



Cynthia's Revels 231 

have here authority for all the devices in the courtship of Brisk 
and of the gaUants in Cynthia's Revels. But the Italian courtesy 
books, which probably influenced Elizabethan customs far more 
than did the laws of chivalry, give much the same rules of gal- 
lantry. Castiglione, for example, mentions practically all the 
points of Le Roman de la Rose, and a great many more, though he 
is careful to condemn excesses and affectation.^ It is sufficiently 
obvious, however, that Jonsou needed only to go to life to get the 
whole foundation for this part of his satire. 

In the weapons and the prizes of the duello we have a type of 
symbolism popular in a number of court of love poems. The four 
allegorical weapons of Cynthia's Revels — the Bare Accost, the Bet- 
ter Eegard, the Solemn Address, and the Perfect Close — as paro- 
dies of modes of behavior in courtship recall the personified graces 
of manner in the court of love of Le Roman de la Rose, found fre- 
quently elsewhere in court of love poetry. They are especially sug- 
gestive of Bel Acueil, Dous Regart, Dous Parler, etc. The prizes 
in Cynthia's Revels are "two wall-eyes in a face forced," "a face 
favorably simpering, with a fan waving," "two lips wagging, and 
never a wise word," "a wring by the hand, with a banquet in a 
corner." Besides, members of the court make wagers of a "Dis- 
cretion." Like symbolism is found, according to Mr. ISTeilson's 
analyses, in the Chastel d' A mors, where proverbs serve as arrows, 
evasions as bucklers, etc., and less extensively in Li Fahlel dou 
Dieu d' Am ours, where "ditches were of sighs, the water was lov- 
ers' tears," and youths in the palace played at chess with kisses for 
prizes. In Jean de Conde's La Messe des Oisiaus, also, there is 
an account of a banquet at the court of Venus, which is clearly of 
the same genre as the prizes in Cynthia's Revels. It is described 
in part by Professor Neilson as follows (p. 68) : "The courses 
consisted of glances, smiles, and the like. . . . There was an 
entremets of sighs and complaints. . . . Next came roasted 
ramprones with sauce of jealousy, and prayers with sauce of tears. 
Then were given to the ladies vessels filled with fair replies and 
sweet favors. . . . Then the servants brought in a course to 
appease the fever of love, — embrace and kisses," etc. A very sim- 
ilar banquet occurs in Li Dis de la Fontaine d' Amours. 

^But The Courtier itself, it will be remembered, is cast in the form 
of one of the set discussions associated with the court of love customs. 



232 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

A few other details from this duello scene that are possibly re- 
lated to the court of love may be mentioned. The statement to 
the citizen that husbands are not allowed at the assembly is ob- 
viously sufficiently true to the spirit of all medieval rules of love, 
and the fact that Downfall belongs to the citizen class makes his 
exclusion all the more appropriate, as villains were commonly 
denied entrance to the court of love.^ The old debate of clerk 
versus knight that Professor Neilson calls attention to as occur- 
ring so frequently in the early love poetry, also finds an echo, per- 
haps, in Jonson's play, where Crites, the scholar, aided by Mer- 
cury, the god of wit, is set in opposition to courtiers, or knights, 
who attempt to disgrace him. The conflict between the two ideals 
is perennial. It is seen in various Italian courtesy books, in 
Sapho and Phao (I, 2 and 3), and between scholar and soldier on 
the one hand and courtier on the other in The Cohlers Prophesie. 
The use of color, again, is stressed in court of love poetry, but 
colors in medieval times are too general in their significance to 
have any especial meaning for the idea of giving the dor by change 
of colors.^ This part of Jonson's scene scarcely does more, per- 
haps, than point out the elaboration and emphasis given to such 
trifles among the courtly in the closing years of the sixteenth cen- 
tury. 

To the classic conception of Eros and Anteros is due the mask- 
ing of Cupid as Anteros before Diana in V, 3. The contrast takes 
a dift'erent form in the court of love poems but one rather kindred 
in spirit. In Le Roman de la Rose Cupid has two types of 
arrows in his quiver, one favorable and one unfavorable to true 
love. It is a familiar conception, as Professor Neilson points 
out (p. 54). A similar treatment is that of the exchange of 
arrows between Love and Death and Cupid's amazement at the 
result of his shafts.^ Out of such conceptions doubtless springs 
the motive in Cynthia's Revels of Cupid's inability to wound with 
arrows of love those who have drunk of the Fountain of Self-Love 

'Cf. The Romaimt of the Rose, 11. 1998 flf. and Neilson, pp. 24 and 36. 

^In Love's Labour's Lost (V, 2) the ladies, masked, change favors, 
so that each of the lovers, also disguised, courts the wrong lady and is 
put to shame. 

'Cf. Barnfield's Affectionate Shepherd. Neilson (pp. 261, 262) traces 
the idea to Lemaire des Beiges. 



Cynthia's Revels 333 

and his chagrin at his failure.^ Mercury twits him by saying that 
it was ominous for him to assume the name of Anteros, since the 
properties of his arrows were apparently changed to suit the char- 
acter he personated. In Le Roman de la Rose one of the arrows 
unfavorable to love is named Orgueil, or Pride. 

Finally, Cynthia's Revels closes with a palinode that is an adap- 
tation of the English ritual. Such parodies were usual, of course, 
but the parody of all religious rites was especially associated 
with the praise of love and the worship of Venus in the court of 
love poetry — for example, the matins in The Court of Love. Jon- 
son's palinode does not deal with love, however, and the immediate 
suggestion for it perhaps did not comiC from court of love poetry. 

In regard to the challenge which Amorphus reads in V, 2, Gif- 
ford comments: "This Mil is a parody on one of the licences 
formerly granted by masters of defence to their pupils, when they 
were supposed to be properly qualified for taking either of their 
three degrees in the fencing-school, viz., a master's, a provost's, or 
a scholar's: indeed, the whole of this scene is a burlesque imita- 
tion of these public trials of skill in the 'noble science of defence' " 
(p. 186). Toward the close of the sixteenth century several 
famous works on fencing were translated into English, especially 
Grassi's True Arte of Defence; and Saviolo's Practise appeared in 
1595. The seven modes of giving the lie in As You Like It (V, 
4) are usually connected with Saviolo's work. This scene in 
Shakespeare's play, with its parody of the procedure of fencing 
and its mockery of technical terms, as in the Eetort Courteous, 
the Countercheck Quarrelsome, etc., is a forerunner of Jonson's 
scene. ^ The Old Law, again, in III, 2, makes use of the duello 
for satire on rivalry in the gallantries of courtship, and on ac- 
count of the probability that the play in some form was acted in 
1599 and hence the possibility that this scene preceded Cynthia's 
Revels, 1 shall point out some likenesses. Lysander, the old hus- 
band in The Old Law, jealous of his wife's courtly young lovers, 

^Cf. p. 242 infra for his inability to wound Crites and Arete. 

^Miss Marietta Neflf of the University of Chicago, in a paper written 
at my suggestion on the court of love influence on Cynthia's Revels, 
first called my attention to this. It is noted by Fleay, Biog. Chron. 
Eng. Drama, Vol. I, p. 365. Miss Neflf pointed out, also, some of the 
parallels between Jonson's play and court of love poetry. I make this 
general acknowledgment, for at this time it is impossible for me to 
tell just what details I may owe to her. 



234 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

engages masters for dancing, riding, and fencing, and devotes his 
time to the acquirement of gallant accomplishments. While he is 
at practice with the dancing-master, his rivals appear, and Ly- 
sander challenges them. 

Bring forth the weapons, we shall find you play; 

And these the weapons, drinking, fencing, dancing. 

Lysander plays the three gallants in turn, they choosing their 
weapons, and overthrows each. The drinking suggests the drink- 
ing bout of Every Man out, and the dancing is nearest to the 
duello of Cynthia's Revels in the display of accomplishments. In 
these bouts at drinking and dancing, as in Cynthia's Revels, duel- 
ling terms are used for the whole procedure, and those who stand 
by comment on the antagonists much as the courtiers of Cynthia's 
Revels do. There are naturally a number of unimportant verbal 
resemblances between the two scenes, but a few parallels are more 
significant. For example, when Amorphus is given the dor at 
the end, Anaides exclaims, "Heart of my blood, Amorphus, what 
have you done? stuck a disgrace upon us all, and at your last 
weapon. . . . D — n me, if he have not eternally undone him- 
self in court, and discountenanced us" (pp. 193 f.). In The Old 
Law, also, the scene concludes with the heaviest disgrace of the 
series. When Lysander proffers Simonides the final glass in the 
drinking bout, saying "Here's long-sword, your last weapon," and 
Simonides is forced to beg off, the First Courtier says, "Why, how 
now, Sim? bear up, thou shamest us all, else," and the Second 
Courtier cries, "Out ! the disgrace of drinkers !"^ 

Akin to the court of love influence on Jonson's play is that of 
the m3'thological comedy which became popular in the last quarter 
of the sixteenth century, and which undoubtedly furnished a strong 
impulse toward Jonson's use of allegory and mythology in 
Cynthia's Revels. The presence of gods interfering in the affairs 
of men is a part of the court of love machinery that probably in- 

^In The Masque of Flowers, 1614, there is a double antimasque in the 
form of a duel between Silenus and Kawasha, "tried at two weapons, at 
song and at dance," Silenus maintaining that "wine is more worthy than 
tobacco." Cf. Evans, English Masques, pp. 100 ff. Here we meet Jon- 
son's duello in a classic form, the contest in song. Similar in spirit, of 
course, was the pastoral contest in song. In Midas ( IV, 1 ) , a play that 
is akin to Cynthia's Revels in a number of features, there is a contest 
between Pan and Apollo in singing love songs. 



Cynthia's Revels 235 

fluenced Jonson, but the convention is even more conspicuous in 
this group of mythological plays. The type of play doubtless arose 
in part from the popularity of pageant and masque, for in both, 
mythological figures early became prominent and readily assumed 
symbolic significance through their appropriateness to a special 
occasion. A second important element in such pageantry was the 
interest in cults of love. Typical instances of how the game of 
love became the central theme of disguisings and pageants long 
before the romantic drama of love developed may be given. Thus, 
as early as 1501, in the "disguisings" in celebration of the mar- 
riage of Prince Arthur, Hope and Desire appear "as Ambassadors 
from Knights of the Mount of Love" unto certain ladies enclosed 
in a castle, and are repulsed; the knights themselves appear and 
win the ladies by assaulting the castle ; and the eight ladies dance, 
four in Spanish and four in English garb.^ The friendly group of 
English and Spanish ladies here furnishes an interesting con- 
trast to the hostile groups of English and Spanish knights bal- 
anced in The Three Lords and Three Ladies of London towards 
the end of the century. Again, in a tournament held at the 
coronation of Henry A^III, there are knights of Pallas serving the 
king, who are challenged by knights of Diana "come to feats of 
armes, for the love of ladies."^ In 1527, a masque of eight boys 
led by Cupid and Plutus, and eight maidens, or goddesses, with 
Mercury as presenter, was shown before the king.^ The presence 
of Cupid and Mercury, the latter as messenger of Jupiter and 
presenter of the masque, reveals the conventionality of Jonson's 
mythological machinery in the masques of Cynthia's Revels. In- 
deed, Mercury, Venus, Cupid, Diana, and Pallas, so frequently 
met in court of love poems, are met in many sixteenth century 
masques as conventional figures symbolizing conceptions of the 
cult of love.* Towards the middle of Elizabeth's reign apparently, 

^See Collier, English Dramatic Poetry, Vol. I, pp. 58 ff. Brotanek, Die 
englifichen Maskenspiele, pp. 26 ff. and 325 f., points out a number of 
parallels in sixteenth century entertainments, and traces the extension 
of the idea of the siege. 

"-See Traill, Social England, Vol. Ill, p. 157. 

"The masque is described by Einstein, The Italian Renaissance in Eng- 
land, pp. 77, 78. Prof. Einstein draws his account from Brewer's Henry 
VIII. 

*Cf. Collier, English Dramatic Poetry, Vol. I, pp. 70, 183, etc.; 
Brotanek, Die englischen Maskenspiele, pp. 49 ff.; Feuillerat, Documents 
relating to the Office of the Revels (sep index) ; etc. 



236 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

when playwrights were seeking far and wide something fresh for 
their hybrid plays, and were willing to combine any elements, as 
we see in Cambises, the plays written for the court naturally began 
to make use of whatever features were popular with the courtiers. 
Thus mythological figures, flattery of the Queen or great nobles, 
as in the masque, and themes of pastoral love or of the more 
formal courtly love, naturally turning often toward conventions of 
courts of love, with which classic characters were already associ- 
ated, were readily combined to form the mythological comedy. 

The real prominence of the mythological comedy is due to Lyly. 
Indeed, the indications of an interest in this type of play before 
Lyly are slight. The Narcissus of 1573 already mentioned has a 
title that would suggest a m}'thological play dealing primarily, 
perhaps, with the fashionable cults of idealized love.^ But there 
could scarcely have been many plays of the type before 1580. 
Apparently the plays that had the vogue at this period were drawn 
from the classics, from the heroic romance, or, according to Gos- 
son, from the French and the Italian novel and play. But the 
titles that have come down to us from this time, as well as the few 
surviving plays, indicate that even the drama dealing with classic 
themes was not mythological or symbolic, though doubtless it was 
usually romantic. 

Two plays, The Arraignment of Paris and The Rare Triumphs 
of Love and Fortune, seem to be independent of Lyly if not 
earlier. They both represent discord among the gods, naturally 
a favorite theme of the mythological plays on account of the in- 
fluence of classic epics, and each play also has the trial form, a 
device used in Cynthia's Revels. The Arraignment of Paris may be 
earlier than any of Lyly's mythological comedies.^ At any rate, 
it lacks the satiric element that belongs to most of the later 
mythological plays. The symbolic use of mythological characters 
in order to flatter Elizabeth — though here, as in Gascoigne's 
masque at Kenilworth, she is not Diana but the favorite of Diana; 

^The thunder and lightning and the hunting of the fox, however, — the 
only details given in the accounts of the play (Feuillerat, Documents 
relating to the Office of the Revels in the Time of Queen Elizabeth, pp. 
141, 142), — do not suggest the type of play that we are dealing with. 

^According to the latest authorities. Professors Bond and Feuillerat, 
only Sapho and Phao among Lyly's mythological comedies could be as 
early as The Arraignment of Paris, and of all Lyly's plays this seems to 
me least like Peele's. 



Cynthia's Revels 237 

the presence of Mercury as a messenger; the suggestion of echo in 
the song of Thestylis with its "shepherds' echo" (III, 2) ; the 
numerous songs, pageants, and other masque-like elements; the 
Lucianic quarrels of the goddesses (II, 1) ; and the hint of con- 
flicting ideals in love, all mark the vague kinship between Peele's 
play and Cynthia's Revels as a type of court drama. The Arraign- 
ment of Paris is closer still to Lyly's plays than to Cynthia's 
Revels on account of the presence of pastoral elements. 

In The Rare Triumphs, where love is the primary theme, the in- 
terest in classic and pastoral themes is not so evident. To all 
appearances this play has neither symbolic flattery nor strongly 
marked allegory, but it is still interesting because of its rather in- 
dependent use of mythological elements in a somewhat conven- 
tional form. The play combines a romantic love story with astro- 
logical motives and a contest of the gods, a combination not unlike 
that of Lyly's Woman in the Moon. In Tlie Rare Trkwiphs, as a 
result of the dispute among the gods, Mercury is dispatched to 
bring "the ghosts of them that Love and Fortune slew." Though 
these shades appear only in dumb-show, the function of Mercury 
here is the same as in Cynthia's Revels, where he summons Echo 
to earth to lament her fate and utter her love. At the end of 
The Rare Triumphs Mercury is sent as an agent to effect the 
union of the lovers. But tjie presence of Mercury in both plays of 
course has little significance. Jonson in the induction to Cynthia's 
Revels comments on the popularity of Mercury as a stage figure. 
"Take any of our play-books without a Cupid or a Mercury in it," 
says the Third Child, "and burn it for an heretic in poetry." 

The plays of Lyly and the mythological plays that follow him 
make use of allegory for a study of manners, and so they become 
of vital importance for Jonson. Personally Lyly must have been 
inclined to this type of play through his interest in the classics, 
through his position as a writer for the court and, consequently, his 
attention to pageantry and symbolism, and finally through a bent 
toward a combination of courtly elegance with didacticism and satire 
as shown in Euphues. For most of his plays Lyly uses m.ythologi- 
cal characters with an allegorical meaning. In Sapho and Phao, 
Cupid, A^enus, and Vulcan appear; in Gallathea, Cupid, Venus, 
Diana, and Neptune; in Endimion, Cynthia and deities of second 
rank; in Midas, Apollo, Pan, and Bacchus; in The Womari in 



238 English Elem.ents in Jonson's Early Comedy 

the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Cupid, etc. ; and in Love's Metamor- 
phosis, Cupid and Ceres. Comment has already been made on 
The Woman in the Moon as embodying studies in character in- 
clination which prepare for the humour types.'^ But in all these 
plays there is a tendency to the portrayal of character under a 
single abstraction, of which the name is often significant. This is 
especially true of Lyly's Avomen. Thus in his plays the mytholog- 
ical machinery is used as a setting for a subtle study in manners, 
and in spite of their romantic threads and their masque-like fea- 
tures, his comedies show a strong satirical vein. It is this com- 
bination of mythological elements with satire on manners that is 
the notable characteristic of Cynthia's Revels. 

The grouping of Lyly's characters, also, suggests Cynthia's 
Revels strongly. The studies of detached individuals in Every 
Man out are replaced in Cynthia's Revels by studies of fairly com- 
pact groups — a group of gallants bound together by their social 
aims, tastes, and customs, and a similar group of women who are 
complements of each other as representatives of follies. Men had 
been grouped in Jonson's earlier plays, though less harmoniously, 
but Cynthia's Revels gives us his first satire on sets of fashion- 
able women. The suggestion for such grouping Jonson may have 
owed to Lyly. Lyly's plays lack the satire on gallants and their 
frivolities that Jonson develops in his earlier comedies; the great 
part of Lyly's satire is directed against women. In his delineation 
of women with cultivated manners but with strong individual in- 
clinations to fickleness, scorn, whimsicality, pride in wit, in fact, 
all the qualities appropriate to women who give their attention to 
the flirtations of courtly love, Lyly's plays stand fairly isolated in 
the drama before Cynthia's Revels. His effective device of set- 
ting women in contrast through the attention of each to some 
particular fancy or inclination, while at the same time they remain 
united in aim and in the worship of their common fashions and 
frivolities, shows just the art of Jonson's play. The influence of 
the medieval imagination thus continues in the two men. Distinc- 
tions among the varied abstractions that make up well unified 
groups in the allegory of the Middle Ages are clear enough, 

^Cf. pp. 73, 74 supra. In some respects, also, Pandora under the in- 
fluence of Luna corresponds to Phantaste, and under the influence of 
Jupiter to Philautia. 



Cynthia's Bevels 239 

whether these groups are the Seven Deadly Sins, the Daughters 
of God, personifications witli such names as Bel Acueil in court of 
love poetry, or the virtues of Spenser's Fasrie Queene. 

The ladies and gallants of Cynthia's court in Endimion, ca. 
1586, are not so consistently grouped in their entries and their 
dialogues as are those oi Cynthia's Revels. In Endimion the most 
obvious division is into pairs of men or women as associates or 
friends, the familiar device of the romantic play. There are, how- 
ever, five men connected with the court, and a group of five women 
balanced against them. The scornful Semele, in particular, is sug- 
gestive of the scorn that springs from self-love in Philautia. 
Tellus, with her passion and her crafty vengeance, and the wait- 
ing women, Scintilla and Favilla, with their jealousy and their 
sharpness of tongue, are more in the vein of Jonson's general 
satire on women. The men of Endimion show little kinship to 
those of Jonson's play except in the relation of lover to mistress 
as fixed by court of love ideals. Eumenides is obsequious and 
flattering in the presence of his lady, Semele, and suffers with true 
lover-like humility from her pert wit and affected scorn. En- 
dimion is naturally full of despair in his love for the divine 
Cynthia. The exalted love of Endimion for Cynthia is akin in 
spirit to the noble devotion of Crites to Arete, and contrasts with 
the more sensual or artificial passion of the other characters in the 
two plays. Possibly the allegory of both Lyly and Jonson involves 
the distinction between the spiritualizing power of true chivalric 
love and the decay of that love among its unworthy followers.^ 
But perhaps the most interesting link between Endimion and 
Cynthia's Revels is the flattery of the Queen through the allegory 
connected with Cynthia. Of course such flattery of Elizabeth is 
frequent enough in the period, but Lyly's method of treatment is 
closest to Jonson's. Both plays contain obvious allusions to the 
isolation of the Maiden Queen in rank, wisdom, virtue, etc., and 
in both Cynthia appears at the end as a' judge and righter of 
wrongs. The chief distinction is that Jonson's Cynthia is more 
the queen than the goddess, while in Lyly's Cynthia the attributes 

^Mr. Long in Mod. Lang. PuU., March, 1909, pp. 164 flF., develops prac- 
tically this idea. Bond, Works of Lyly, Vol. Ill, pp. 83 and 103, notes 
the possibility of such allegory but slights it. 



240 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

of the moon goddess prevail. In both plays, also, a magical foun- 
tain appears as part of the machinery.^ 

The pastoral and silvan groups of Midas, Gallathea, Love's 
Metamorphosis, and The Woman in the Moon, we may disregard; 
only the courtly groups are significant for Jonson's plays. In 
Midas the three courtiers who are contrasted as humour types are 
grouped as councillors of Midas. They do not, however, like the 
gallants of Cyntliiafs Revels, represent different types of fashion- 
able follies; their bents are for gold, for war, and for love. The 
court women are more suggestive of the women of Cynthia's 
Revels. Sophronia in name and in character is akin to the vir- 
tuous Arete. She stands for the higher ideals of the true court 
life, though she does not hold aloof from the unworthy members 
of the court as Arete does. There is a group of four shallow court 
ladies: Suavia, whose chief interest is love; Amerulla, fond of 
stories, and accused of being bitter and spiteful; Camilla, given to 
dancing ; and Cselia, who loves singing. In the variety of their 
inclinations, in the common bent of all except Cselia toward court- 
ship, and in their frank self-analysis, the group is suggestive of 
the four court nymphs in Cynthia's Revels. The scene (III, 3) 
given to the pastimes of the women, stor}^ telling and discussion 
of love, is much in the manner of Cynthia's Revels. In I, 2, 
Cgelia's page gives a humorous account of his mistress with special 
satire on her dress and ornaments, and the discussion here be- 
tween the pages of a man and a woman recalls that in Cynthia's 
Revels between Mercury and Cupid, one serving a gallant and the 
other a lady, though Lyly's treatment is more burlesque. The 
meeting of Pipenetta and the two pages is slightly suggestive of 
the association of the pages Morus and Prosaites in Cynthia's 
Revels with Gelaia, who is disguised as a page. 

The whole spirit of the court in Midas is revealed in the stric- 
tures of Martins, lover of war, on Eristus, a devotee of courtship 
and gallantry, and on Mellacrites, a lover of money (II, 1, 11. 
57 ff.): 

^Mr. Long's interpretation of the allegory in Endimion would perhaps 
make the play more closely akin to Cynthia's Revels than I have indi- 
cated. The characters, according to his interpretation of their allegori- 
cal significance as vices and virtues, would in several cases correspond to 
those of Jonson's play. 



Cynthia's Revels 341 

That greedines of Mellacrites, whose heart-stringes are made of Plutus 
purse-stringes, hath made Mydas a lumpe of earth, that should be a god 
on earth; and thy effeminate minde Eristus, whose eyes are stitcht on 
Ccelias face, and thoughts gyude to her beautie, hath bredde in all the 
court such a tender wantonnes, that nothing is thoght of but loue, a 
passion proceeding of beastly lust, and coloured with a courtlie name of 
loue. . . . Captaines . . . must account it more honorable, in the 
court to be a cowarde, so rich and amorus, than in a campe to be valiant, 
if poore and maimed. Pie is more fauoured that pricks his finger with 
his mistres needle, then hee that breakes his launce on his enemies 
face: and he that hath his mouth full of fair words, than he that 
hath his bodie ful of deep scarres. If one be olde, & haue siluer haires 
on his beard, so he haue golden ruddocks in his bagges, he must be 
wise and honourable. If young and haue curled locks on his head, amarous 
glaunces with his eyes, smooth speeches in his mouth, euerie Ladies lap 
shalbe his pillow, euery Ladies face his glasse, euery Ladies eare a sheath 
for his flatteries. . . . Hee is the man, that being let bloud caries 
his arme in a scarfe of his mistres fauour, not he that beares his legge 
on a stilt for his Countries safetie. 

Sophronia, while admitting the charges of Martius, rebukes his 
passion for war. and expresses her own ideals thus (II, 1, 11. 
104 ff.) : 

Let Phrygia be an example of chastitie, not luste; liberal itie, not 
couetousnes; valor, not tyrannic. I wish not your bodies banisht, but 
your mindes, that my father and your king may be our honor, and the 
worlds wonder. And thou, Ccelia, and all you Ladies, learn this of 
SopJironia, that beautie in a minute is both a blossome and a blast: 
Loue, a worme which seeming to liue in the. eye, dies in the hart. You 
be all yong, and faire, endeuor all to be wise & vertuous. 

In Cynthia's Bevels (III, 2) Crites gives an analysis of the types 
that haunt the court, while Arete urges patience on the ground that 
Cynthia will sweep her court clean of all the follies that prevail. 
There are few resemblances of detail between the situations in the 
two plays, but the general contrast between the two ideals of 
courtly life is similar. The wise Sophronia, the types of frivolous 
women, the courtiers with their varied humours, the pages, the 
light jests and pastimes, the keen interest in courtship, the coun- 
tereurrent of seriousness, and the classic deities determining the 
course of the action, furnish a combination of characters and 
motives akin to that of Cynthia's Revels. 

In Sapho and Phao there is another grouping of characters and 
another combination of motives showing a vague kinship to 



242 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

Cynthia's Revels. The gods controlling human affairs; the pages; 
the contrast between scholar and courtier, with its dim foreshadow- 
ing of that between Crites and the gallants of Jonson's plays; 
courtly love as the central interest; the rules that Sybilla, in- 
structress in love, gives Phao for winning the love of women; the 
presence of Cupid armed with arrows that inspire love and some 
that inspire disdain ; and the group of six court ladies, with their 
discussions of love and coquetry, their self-analysis, and their af- 
fectation, pride, and flippancy, all belong to the conventions of the 
narrower group of mythological comedies which includes Cynthia's 
Bevels. 

The last of Lyly's plays to be considered is Gallathea, which 
shows a different sort of resemblance to Cynthia's Revels. In 
Gallathea Cupid comes to the court of Diana in disguise to prac- 
tice on her nj-mphs, and finally is discovered, rebuked, and pun- 
ished. In Cynthia's Revels Cupid's invasion of Diana's court is 
treated similarly except that instead of being punished the pre- 
sumptuous god is banished. Spenser takes up this motive in The 
Faerie Queene (Bk. Ill, Canto vi), but does not carry it to the 
same conclusion. When Cupid has been released in Gallathea, 
Venus says, "Diana cannot forbid him to wounde," and Diana re- 
plies, "Yes, chastitie is not within the leuell of his bowe" (V, 
3, 11. 79, 80). In Cynthia's Revels, Cupid, having failed to wound 
those who have dnmk of the Fountain of Self-Love, tries the 
virtue of his arrows on Crites, and again fails. Mercury explains 
to the incredulous Cupid, "Arete's favour makes any one shot-proof 
against thee, Cupid" (Y, 3, p. 201). The idea here is very sug- 
gestive of the immunity of the virtuous in The Faithful Shep- 
herdess and Comus. 

Outside of Lyly's work there are a few plays with mythological 
elements that continue the study of manners in an allegorical 
framework. Such are The Cohlers Prophesie, Summer's Last Will 
and Testament, HistriGm,astix, and Old Fortunatus. All four of 
these are more or less satirical, and represent the conflict of vice 
and virtue. Besides the general theme and plan, each one shows 
in some details a slight similarity to Cynthia's Revels. Sum- 
mer's Last Will and Testament and Histriomastix need not be 
taken up here; a few minor resemblances between these plays and 
Cynthia's Revels are discussed later in other connections. Old 



Cynthia's Revels 243 

Fortunatus show^s the following vague resemblances to Jonson's 
play, besides the fact that both open with an echo scene. The con- 
flict between vice and virtue which underlies Cynthia's Revels is 
in Dekker's play added to the Fortunatus legend. At the end of 
IV, 1, indeed, Dekker's personified virtue is several times ad- 
dressed as Arete, and like Jonson's Arete she is called divine.^ 
Both are scorned and neglected. The allegory embodied in For- 
tunatus of an undeserving man's being endowed by Fortune with 
wealth appears with Jonson in iVrgurion's love of Asotus. Asotus's 
distribution of jewels and trinkets among the gallants of the court 
(IV, 1) is paralleled in Old Fortunatus by Andelocia's gifts of 
jewels and money at the court of England (III, 1). In fact, there 
are a few details of Cynthia's Revels in which Jonson seems to be 
glancing directly at the Fortunatus story. When Amorphus and 
Asotus exchange hats (I, 1), Amorphus tells how his liat, which 
Asotus regards ruefully because of its dilapidation, was secured in 
Eussia and has marvelous magical powers. The wishing hat of 
Fortunatus, Mdiich is described as an insignificant looking "coarse 
felt hat" (II, 1, p. 319 and II, 2, p. 331), has been stolen out of 
Babylon.^ In connection with these details certain general re- 
semblances in character types may be mentioned. Fortunatus is 
the traveler who delights to visit strange lands, as Amorphus is 
the pretended traveler, praising travel and boasting of incredible 
experiences. The two characters are quite dissimilar, however. 
Agripyne represents the type of court lady that we find in Phi- 
lautia and Phantaste. She is interested in discussions of love like 
those of the academies (III, 1) and is scornful and pitiless toward 
her lovers. In III, 1 (p. 340) she characterizes the typical court 
lover much as Jonson does in Cynthia's Revels. Agripyne says 
of women (pp. 340 f.) : "Our glory is to hear men sigh whilst 
we smile, to kill them with a frown, to strike them dead with a 
sharp eye, to make you this day wear a feather, and tomorrow a 
sick nightcap. Oh, why this is rare, there's a certain deity in 
this, when a lady by the magic of her looks, can change a man into 
twenty shapes." Philautia wishes for "a little more command and 

^Cf. Cynthia's Revels, III, 2, p. 169, and Old Fortunatus, pp. 313, 360 f. 
The page references for Dekker's play are to the volume of Dekker in 
the Mermaid Series. 

^In the older form of tlie Fortunatus story, waters with magical power, 
suggestive of the fountain of Narcissus, play a part. 



244 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

sovereignty . . . as if there were no other heaven but in my 
smile, nor other hell but in my frown." Phantaste would affect 
no lovers, except that she might "take pride in tormenting the poor 
wretches," but she wishes to "prove all manner of suitors, of all 
humours, and of all complexions" (IV, 1, p. 173). 

The Coblers Propliesie, already mentioned in connection with 
The Case is Altered as important in the development of the stage 
cobbler, has a few parallels to Cynthia's Revels. At the opening 
of The Coblers Propheste Mercury, on an errand from Jove, meets 
Ceres, as he encounters Cupid in Cynthia's Revels. To Ceres he 
explains that a synod of the gods has been called to consider the 
evils that prevail in Boeotia, for Venus, or Lust, is followed by 
all. Mars himself has become a reveler, and Cynthia bewails her 
isolation in virtue. The play then proceeds to picture conditions 
in Boeotia, presenting certain vicious types in contrast with vir- 
tuous types. The treatment of neglected virtue centers around 
the neglect of war, and thus the soldier is the principal type of 
virtue. The scholar is secondary, but also neglected. Opposed to 
the soldier and the scholar is the courtier type. The "little God" 
Contempt (I, 2, 1. 216), or Olygoros as the scholar calls him, tak- 
ing the name Content, holds sway over the characters who represent 
evil. This supremacy of Contempt is similar in spirit to the 
prevalence of self-love in the evil court group of Cynthia's Revels 
as a result of drinking of the Fountain of Self-Love. Besides the 
court of the Duke in The Cohlers Prophesie, there is an especial 
establishment of Venus, which is entered by the "dore of Dalli- 
ance" (ITT, 1, 1. 41) and where there is a group of attendants, 
Follie, Nicenes, ISTewf angle. Dalliance, and lealozie (III, 3), sim- 
ilar in conception to Moria, Phantaste, Hedon, etc. of Cynthia's 
Revels. The court of Venus in The Cohlers Prophesie is nearer 
to the court of love than is the group of Jonson's play, but the 
spirit that prevails in the court of Venus is that of the evil court 
in Cynthia's Revels. "Wiliness. ^\Tong and wantonnes" are "at 
libertie" (III, 3, 11. 65 f.). Mars is as trim as a morris dancer, 
and Venus devotes herself to dress, diet, wantonness, fancifulness, 
etc. In the reform of the Duke's court, a priest offers a prayer 
(V, 4) pledging the whole court to entertain humility, obedience, 
love, and chastity in the place of pride, presumption, contempt, 
and lust. The four virtues opposed to the four vices suggest the 



Cynthia's Bevels 345 

balance of four virtues against four vices that is fundamental 
throughout Cynthia's Revels. There is in The Cohlers Prophesie, 
also, an echo scene (II, 1) in which the cobbler pursues Echo as 
Amorphus does in Cynthia's Revels. 

The kinship of this whole group of mythological plays includ- 
ing Cynthia's Revels does not seem to be accidental, but apparently 
shows a recognition on the part of the dramatists of certain rules 
and limitations, themes and characters, as appropriate to the type. 
Perhaps if we had the bulk of the dramatic work produced in the 
last quarter of the sixteenth century, the plays of this type would 
shade into each other with less perceptible differences, and the evo- 
lution would be more obvious. The plays that have been taken up 
also show a development of literary devices — medieval allegory of 
courtship, court of love conventions, mythological machinery, etc. — 
which led to a more and more successful satire on the special forms 
of social evils dealt with. These plays emphasize, moreover, the 
fact that, in a period when not all the resources of dramatic satire 
had yet been realized, dramatists, even masters like Jonson, fell 
back upon the art, the technique, the framework that had already 
proved successful. 

The meeting of Mercury and Cupid, though it has been com- 
pared with the opening of some of the mythological plays, is drawn 
from Lucian, as Gifford points out. Its chief function is to allow 
Cupid and Mercury to engage in a wit combat over each other's 
failings and vices. ^ The device of echo, which occurs in a num- 
ber of the mythological plays, is of course general. It is found in 
The Old Wives' Tale (11. 482 ff.) ; The Wounds of Civil War 
(Ilazlitt's Dodsley, Vol. VII, p. 148) ; The Maid's Metamorphosis 
(TV, 1) ; the second day's entertainment at Kenilworth (Poems of 
Gascoigne, Vol. II, pp. 96 ff.) ; The Entertainment at Elvetham, 
1591 (Worls of Lyly, ed. Bond, Vol. I, pp. 441 ff.) ; Barntield's 
Cynthia. With Certaine Sonnets, Sonnet 13 ; Watson's Hel'atom- 
pathia, 25, and Tears of Fancie, 29; Breton's "A Eeport Song," 
in England's Helicon (p. 243) ; and "Philisides and Echo" in 

^One passage in this dialogue between tlie two gods had already been 
used by Marston in a Lucianic satire of Pygmalion's Image and Certain 
Satires. Cupid says to Mercury in Cynthia's Revels (I, 1), "Venus, at 
the same time, but stooped to embrace you, and, to speak by metaphor, 
you borrowed a girdle of hers, as you did Jove's sceptre," etc. Cf. 
Marston, Satire V, 11. 23-28. 



246 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

Book II of Sidney's Arcadia.^ Jonson's use of echo in Cynthia's 
Revels has no connection with the play. It seems to be a masque- 
like element introduced on account of the great popularity of echo 
songs and scenes at the period. Indeed, he satirizes his own de- 
vice as the particular fad of the puppet-show. When Amorphus 
pursues Echo, Mercury remark (I, 1), "I guessed it should be 
some travelling motion pursued Echo so." 

In dealing with the affected graces and accomplishments, the 
pastimes and fads, of the courtly, Jonson has naturally utilized the 
allegorical machinery that harmonized with the traditions and cus- 
toms of fashionable life; but, while the framework of Cynthia's 
Bevels and the representation of the court are drawn from courtly 
literature, Jonson has turned to philosophical ideas for the broad 
moral and social phases of his treatment, and the heart of his 
play — the grouping of characters and the conflict between vice and 
virtue — presents a study of manners organized not for the surface 
fancy of poetry but as a formal treatment of ethical and social 
qualities. Undoubtedly his grouping and pairing of vices and vir- 
tues is based on accepted systems in ethical treatises, though the 
narrowing of his field to court life, his conception of humours as 
influencing the individual, and his attempt to satirize concrete fol- 
lies of bis own day, would serve to modify any system. 

The ultimate source of Jonson's ethical ideas must have been 
Aristotle. Indeed, to a certain extent Jonson was probably influ- 
enced directly by the Nicomo.chean Ethics. The kinship appears 
most clearly in the two masques of Cynthia's Revels, where the 
vices of the court are disguised as virtues, the basis of Jonson's 
treatment being the Aristotelian conception of vice as the excess 
of what in the mean state is a virtue. In the long sketch of 
Crites, also, (II, 1) there is decided emphasis on the iVristotelian 
mean in various phases of the character, in humours, courage, man- 
ners, etc. To another conception of Aristotle Jonson may have 
been indebted for the general basis of his division into groups. In 
the tw^o masques the four court nymphs are grouped as the "four 

^Erasmus also employed the device in his Colloquies. For further use 
of echo cf. Ward, Bist. Eng. Dram. Lit., Vol. I, p. 417; Greg, Pastoral 
Poetry, etc., pp. 199, 343, and 344, n. 1. In Mod. Lang. Pull, Vol. X, 
p. 269, there is reference to an echo song in Courtlie Gontroversie of 
Cupid's Cautels. The use of echo was very frequent in the early part 
of the seventeenth century also. 



Cynthia's Revels 347 

cardinal virtues, upon which the whole frame of the court doth 
move/' and the four gallants as the "four cardinal properties, with- 
out which the body of compliment moveth not" (V, 3, p. 199), 
the one representing abstract qualities of character and the other 
the qualities as exhibited in action. As these virtues and proper- 
ties are simply the mean of the vices represented in the nymphs 
and courtiers of the play, this division suggests that the same dis- 
tinction was intended in the allegory of the general plot. In only 
one case, however, do Jonson's male and female characters exactly 
correspond. Phronesis, Prudence, one of Cynthia's nymphs, stands 
for the abstract quality, while Phronimus, mentioned as belonging 
to Cynthia's court (III, 2, p. 167), is the man prudent in action.^ 
Though Aristotle makes no attempt to distinguish by name the 
moral states from the corresponding activities, he shows an obvious 
tendency to look at vices and virtues from the dual point of view 
of character and activity. Jonson's basis of division is suggested 
in the following passages of the Ethics, for example: 

There remains what I may call the practical life of the rational part 
of Man's being. But the rational part is twofold. . . . The practical 
life too may be conceived of in two ways, viz., either as a moral state, 
or as a moral activity: but we must understand by it the life of activity, 
as this seems to be the truer form of the conception (Ethics, Bk. I, Chap. 
6, Welldon's translation, pp. 15, 16). 

In a word moral states are the results of activities corresponding to the 
moral states themselves. It is our duty therefore to give a certain char- 
acter to the activities, as the moral states depend upon the differences of 
the activities (II, 1, p. 36). 

If then the virtues are neither emotions nor faculties, it remains that 
they must be moral states (II, 4, p. 44). 

For it would seem that the moral purpose is most closely related to 
virtue, and is a better criterion of character than actions themselves are 
(III, 4, p. 65). 

Again, as the good may be either an activity or a moral state, etc. 
(VII, 13, p. 236). 

As in the case of the virtues it is sometimes a moral state, and at other 
times an activity, which entitles people to be described as good, so is it 
also in the case of friendship or love (VIII, 6, p. 255). 

^The nomenclature here hints at a reason for Jonson's distribution of 
parts to women as well as men, aside from the need of both sexes in his 
treatment of courtly love and follies. The Greek names for abstractions 
are feminine, and this fact may have suggested the groups of women con- 
trasted with groups of men in Cynthia's Revels. 



248 English Elements in Jonsons Early Comedy ' 

In the individual abstractions of Cynthia's Revels, the sugges- 
tions of Aristotle are to be found in the similarity of conce])tion 
rather than in the use of Aristotelian names. Jonson's characters, 
though abstractions, are based on living tjqoes, and fresh names in 
preference to the well known terms of philosophy would appeal to 
him as indicating the individuality of the character. Thus, while 
Jonson's vices are clearly the excess of qualities that appear as 
virtues in the masques, the only exact correspondence between his 
characters and Aristotle's ethical qualities is found in Asotus, the 
Prodigal, who masques as the liberal man. In the Ethics (II, 7), 
prodigality, Asotia, is treated as the excess of liberality, Hedon, 
whose name Jonson translates by Voluptuous, bears as a virtue the 
name Eupathes, and the description of Eupathes (quoted p. 252 
infra) may be compared with what Aristotle says of bodily pleas- 
are (VII, 14, p. 241) : "^ow bodily goods admit of excess, and 
vice consists in pursuing tlie excess, not in pursuing the necessary 
pleasures; for everybody finds a certain satisfaction in rich meats 
or wines or the pleasures of love, but not always the proper satis- 
faction." Anaides, the Shameless, corresponds to shamelessness, 
one of the excesses treated by Aristotle, though in the Ethics the 
mean is modesty, not good audacity as in Jonson's masque. As a 
jester Anaides continues Carlo, who has already been discussed in 
connection with Aristotle's treatment of buffoonery as excess in the 
use of wit (p. 172 supra). Again, the treatment of Philautia, or 
Self-Love, wdio takes the alias Storge, translated by Jonson "Allow- 
able Self-Love," shows the same distinction that Aristotle makes 
between self-love in the usual sense and that proper love for self 
•which issues in the worthy pursuit of honor, etc. (IX, 8, pp. 
299 fl'.). Finally, as the rounded man, judicious and devoted to 
virtue, Crites is the broad abstraction representing activity that 
corresponds to Arete, Virtue, the most general moral state. In him 
are combined all virtues, and his lack of excess in all phases of 
normal life is stressed. The probable influence of Aristotle's 
"highminded man'' on the character of Crites will be taken up 
later. 

The ethical ideas of Aristotle, however, had early made their 
way into the general literature of the English Eenaissance,^ and 
there were probably many reworkings of Aristotelian vices and vir- 

Tf. p. 28 supra. 



Cynthia's Revels 249 

tues which might have contributed to Jonson's allegory. Undoubt- 
edly the native drama had a large share in determining the dra- 
matic form that his abstractions take on. Indeed, many of Jon- 
son's Aristotelian ideas as well as much of his art were probably 
derived from the morality, to which he would naturally turn in pre- 
senting dramatically the essential conflict between opposite ethical 
qualities. Two divergent types of the morality showing the influ- 
ence of Aristotelian conceptions, Skelton's Magnificence and Wilson's 
Three Lords and Three Ladies of Lo7idon, may be chosen as illus- 
trating the kinship between the morality and Cynthia's Bevels. It 
seems to me altogether probable that Jonson knew both of these 
plays, though I would make no claim for them as actual sources 
of Cynthia's Revels. His use of Skeltonic meter in his masques 
has already been mentioned, and The Fortunate Isles introduces 
Skogan and Skelton as characters, Skelton repeating lines from 
his own Elynour Rummyng. The general interest in Skelton in 
Jonson's time is evidenced by llie Doivnfall of Robert Earl of 
Huntington, in which he is represented as taking the role of Friar 
Tuck, and by the play of Scogan and Sl-clton, which appeared 
shortly after Cynthia's Revels. 

Magnificence undoubtedly sets forth contemporary manners at 
the English court, as Jonson's play does, though first consideration 
is given to the allegory. Skelton's morality depicts groups of cour- 
tiers representing allegorically certain evils and complementing 
each other ethically, w'ho are arrayed against the principles of good, 
and through disguise effect entrance into the court and become 
powerful before they are overthrown. In this we have the general 
plan of Cynthia's Revels. Measure is the chief virtuous character 
of Magnificence, corresponding closely to Crites. The very name 
Measure implies the fundamental principle of Aristotle's Ethics, 
while other names that are applied to the character — Prudence, 
Continence, Judicial Rigor — indicate the comprehensive scope of 
the conception. Crites and Measure are thus both ideals of con- 
duct and accomplishment set in contrast with evils and virtues of 
narrower scope. Both are naturally antagonized by the vices of 
the court. In Magnificence the courtiers plot against Measure 
(11. 543 ff.) and by "a praty slyght" have him dismissed from the 
court (11. 940 ff.). It is only at the end of the play that he 



250 English Elements in Jo7ison's Early Comedy 

retiirns to power.^ The courtiers of Cynthia's Bevels show the 
same hostility to Crites, and plot to disgrace him. He is also 
poor, and is unrecognized in the reign of follies except hy Arete, 
Virtue; but with the coming of Cynthia he finds himself in royal 
favor. Though Crites has impressed most of Jonson's critics as 
chiefly echoing a personal quarrel, there is clearly an allegorical 
idea underlying the treatment which is similar to the conception of 
Measure in Magnificence. 

The correspondence between Cynthia's Revels and Magnificence 
is much clearer in the evil types, where the grouping and the in- 
terrelations in the two plays are very similar. Four courtiers ap- 
pear in Magnifice7ice wlio represent conduct: Counterfeit Counte- 
nance, Cloaked Collusion, Crafty Conveyance, and Courtly Abu- 
sion; and two vices or fools who represent principles. Fancy and 
Folly. Jonson's four courtiers are Amorphus, or the Deformed, 
that is, one "made out of the mixture of shreds of forms" ; Hedon, 
or the Voluptuous; Anaides, the Impudent or Shameless; and 
Asotus, or the Prodigal. These courtiers of Cynthia's Revels are 
paired with four court women: Moria, or Folly; Phantaste, Light 
Wittiness or Foolish Fancy ; Philautia, or Self -Love ; and Argurion, 
or Money. Jonson's explanation of the two masques (pp. 246 f. 
supra) makes clear enough the basis of his division of allegorical 
figures into male and female, the one representing conduct in life, 
the other, abstract quality guiding life. In Skelton's scheme for alle- 
gory women do not appear at all, and to my mind Jonson's evident 
difficulty in finding female types to balance against the male but 
emphasizes the kinship of his groups to Skelton's. Moria and 
Phantaste correspond in name to Skelton's Folly and Fancy, and 
Philautia, or Self-Love, a familiar abstraction with Lyly and his 
contemporaries, makes a good third. Argurion, however, is not so 
suitable. The personification of money is very usual in the moral- 
ities, but it does not fit into a scheme of moral principles. When 
Jonson grouped the women in the masque to be acted before Cyn- 
thia, Argurion was replaced by Gelaia, Laughter or Buffoonery, the 
daughter of Moria, a combination which is still imperfect, however. 

^Even if Jonson derived his conception directly from Skelton, some 
variation of treatment was necessary at this point on account of his 
effort to flatter Elizabeth. Skelton's king Magnificence could go astray 
and drive Measure from the court, but Cynthia must be ideal throughout. 
The evil types thus appear in Cynthia's Revels only while the Queen is 
absent, and at her appearance reform is effected. 



Cynthia's Revels 351 

Another interesting link between the handling of characters in 
the two plays consists in the disguise of the follies as virtues. In 
order to deceive Magnificence and gain a foothold in the court, the 
gallants of Skelton's play assume the following false names : Coun- 
terfeit Countenance becomes Good Demeanance; Cloaked Collusion, 
Sober Sadness; Crafty Conveyance, Sure Surveyance; and Courtly 
Abusion, Lusty Pleasure. Fancy and Folly appear as Largess and 
Conceit. After ruining Magnificence, the false counsellors flee 
and leave him to repentance. In Cynthia's Revels the courtiers 
and court ladies appear before Cynthia in a masque under the 
names of the virtues corresponding to the follies which they repre- 
sent — Self-Love as Allowable Self-Love, Prodigality as Liberality, 
etc. As soon as they are unmasked, Cynthia recognizes them as 
follies, rates them sharply, and banishes them from the court. 

This disguise of vices as virtues which is found in both Magnifi- 
cence and Cynthia's Revels is, however, an established convention 
of the conflict type of morality. In Nature the vices change their 
names in order to put themselves in a more favorable light. The 
device, which apparently became increasingly popular in the late 
moralities, is elaborately employed in Resfuhlica, Lindesay's Ane 
Satyre of Three Estates, Albion Knight, Wager's The Longer thou 
Livest, and Wilson's Three Lords and Three Ladies of London. 
It is even found, also, in the romantic comedy Sir Clyomon and 
Sir Clamydes, where Subtle Shift passes as Knowledge. The use 
of the name Content by Contempt in The Cohlers Prophesie has 
already been mentioned. 

Beyond these general resemblances between Magnificence and 
Cynthia's Revels, the separate characters in the two plays show 
some correspondences, though it is evident that Jonson has .made 
different equations and has developed the characterization to fit his 
own scheme. Thus in Skelton's group of four courtiers. Counter- 
feit Countenance, who appears first, like a herald of the other evils, 
suggests Amorphus, the first to appear in Cynthia's Revels and in 
some respects the leader of his group. The treatment of Amor- 
phus as the counterfeit traveler, at least, associates him with Skel- 
ton's character. In assuming the disguise of a virtue, Amorphus 
takes the name Eucosmos, which Jonson translates by "neat and 
elegant." Decorous and orderly are common meanings of the word. 
Counterfeit Countenance takes the kindred name Good Demean- 



253 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

ance. Attention to dress and speech Skelton treats in the figure 
of Courtly Abusion, who represents the elegance of Hedon. Hedon 
is a continuation of Brisk in Every Man out, and the similarity of 
Brisk to Courtly Abusion has already been mentioned (pp. 187 f. 
supra). The aliases of Courtly Abusion and Hedon indicate 
their kinship still better. Courtly Abusion takes the name Lusty 
Pleasure. Hedon, whose name could easily be translated by Pleas- 
ure, appears in the masque as Eupathes, and Jonson's description 
of Eupathes makes his identity with gay or Lusty Pleasure very, 
convincing. "Eupathes . . . entertains his mind with an 
harmless, but not incurious variety : all the objects of his senses 
are sumptuous, himself a gallant, that, without excess, can make 
use of superfluity, go richl}^ in embroideries, jewels, and what not, 
without vanity, and fare delicately without gluttony" (V, 3, p. 
199). In name Skelton's third gallant. Cloaked Collusion 
(11. 689 ff.), does not suggest Anaides of Cynthia's Revels, but 
the two are somewhat akin in character. Cloaked Collusion 
is hypocritical and dissentious, delighting in discord (11. 700 ff.). 
Carlo Buifone of Every Man out, who is continued in Anaides, 
is closer to Cloaked Collusion (p. 172 supra) than is Anaides, 
except that position at court and pretensions to gallantry place 
Anaides in the same social class with Skelton's courtier. In 
some respects all three are characterized as Detraction.^ Eelations 
between the other characters of the two plays are vaguer and more 
confused. The alias of Fancy in Magnificence is Largess, or Liber- 
ality; that of Asotus in Cynthia's Revels is Eucolos, or the liberal 
man. Fancy, however, is to be associated with Phantaste, not only 
in name but in caprice, waywardness, whimsicality of character. 
Phantaste's alias, Euphantaste, or "well-conceited Wittiness," is 
closest to Conceit, the aJias of Skelton's Folly. The conception of 
folly is represented in Cynthia's Revels by Moria and her kinsman 
Morus, the fool. 

The resemblances that have been noted between Magnificence 
and Cynthia's Revels by no means make them similar, of course. 
The striking kinship between the two plays lies in their similar 
modification of ethical conceptions derived ultimately from Aris- 

^Anaides is twice called Mischief, a name associated with Cloaked Col- 
lusion (1. 702), and once Detraction, when he has been planning a means 
of injuring Crites secretly (III, 2, p. 166; IV, 1, pp. 174 and 179). 



Cynthia's Revels 253 

totle, and in the similar grouping. The special feature of Jonson's 
treatment, the grouping of qualities of character in one class and 
of qualities of conduct in another, is found in Magnificence, but 
is far less obvious than in Cynthia's Revels and is apparently not 
consciously aimed at. In both plays, also, the gallants show traces 
of the Seven Deadly Sins diverging from the moral idea toward 
the social. Thus Cloaked Collusion and Anaides are influenced by 
the conceptions of Detraction and Derision, developments from 
Envy ; and Courtly Abusion and Hedon are must like such a figure 
of Pride as is found in Nature, where Pride has become a gallant. 

The Three Lords and Three Ladies of London is more interest- 
ing than the ordinary morality as a preparation for Cynthia's 
Revels because of its nearer approach to the portrayal of courtly 
pastime and pageantry, which were especially associated with the 
game of love, and because of the elaborate symmetry and balance 
maintained throughout the play in the system of grouping. The 
care with which both Wilson and Jonson balance their characters — 
lords or courtiers, ladies, pages, etc. — is no doubt partly the result 
of the attention paid in the two plays to love as the primary pur- 
suit of the courtier, for each gallant must pursue a lady and be 
followed by a page. The ethical idea that vice consists in the 
excess of what is permissible gives the clue to much of the nomen- 
clature in the contrasted groups of The Three Lords and Three 
Ladies of London also. In general, however, Wilson has gathered 
a heterogeneous mass of characters, perhaps drawing from any 
source and inventing at will so long as the various groups of three 
fi^gures balance against each other. This is much Jonson's system 
except that he groups his characters in four. But on the whole 
Wilson's characters are not so suggestive of Jonson's as are those 
in Magnificence. 

The opening of Wilson's play, in which the three Lords of Lon- 
don hang up their shields and challenge all comers in defence of 
their love for the three Ladies of London, may be compared with 
the duello scene in Cynthia's Revels, where Asotus formally chal- 
lenges to a trial in courtship. The use of chivalrie conventions in 
both cases would account for some vague resemblances. But it is 
in the masques presented by the courtiers and court ladies of Cyn- 
thia's Revels that Ave have the most striking resemblances to the 
plot of The Three Lords and Three Ladies. In Cynthia's Revels 



254 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

the four ladies representing excess in inclination of character ap- 
pear in a masque as the moderate motives for action, and the four 
courtiers representing excess in phases of courtly compliment 
appear in a second masque as the virtuous and commendable means. 
Each character is distinguished by a certain color in costume and 
by a device and a motto which are symbolic of the virtue repre- 
sented. The pages Cupid and Mercury act as presenters and 
explain elaborately the significance of each figure. A similar chiv- 
alric feature is found twice in The Three Lords and Tliree Ladies. 
At the opening of the play, the three Lords of London, appropri- 
ately attired, enter with their shields borne by pages, who inter- 
pret the devices and mottoes as symbols of the virtues represented 
in the lords. Later the three Lords of London encounter the tliree 
Lords of Spain, each bearing a shield with a device and motto 
and followed by a page bearing a "pendant" on which are a differ- 
ent device and motto. The whole Spanish group is composed of 
vices who take the names of the corresponding virtues. After 
Fealty, the herald of the three London Lords, acting as presenter, 
has repeated the interpretation of their character and array, 
Shealty, the herald of the opposing group, explains the colors, 
devices, and mottoes of the Spanish lords and pages so as to 
interpret their character. Thus with the appearance of the Lords 
of Spain we have a type of pageantry very similar to that in the 
masques of Cynthia's Revels. 

In both Cynthia's Revels and The Three Lords and Three Ladies 
the courtiers represent types of action, external aspects of charac- 
ter. In Jonson's play the ladies come near to representing the 
humours or character inclinations of the courtiers. Amorphus 
leans to Phantaste, or court wit ; Hedon to Philautia, or Self-Love ; 
and Anaides to Moria, or Folly; and Asotus pursues Money. In 
Wilson's play it is the pages who represent the inclination moving 
the courtiers. Wit waits on Policy, Wealth on Pomp, and Will 
on Pleasure. The ladies of Wilson's play and the pages of Jon- 
son's, whom we might then expect to find corresponding after a 
fashion, are inconsistently treated. Wilson pairs Policy with Love, 
Pomp with Lucre, — who duplicates the allegory found in the page 
Wealth, — and Pleasure with Conscience. No single idea would 
indicate the relation between lords and ladies unless it be that the 
ladies furnish the necessary saving quality that prevents the type 



Cynthia's Revels 255 

of action represented in the lords from being evil. The plan here^ 
as in Cynthia s Revels, is disturbed chiefly by the presence of 
Money in the allegory. The ideal type found in Crites, so far as 
it occurs at all in Wilson's play, is portrayed negatively in the- 
figure of Nemo, who is treated throughout as supreme in authority,, 
with power to judge and punish. In him Wilson has embodied 
the popular conception of vice as so prevalent that there is no one 
to check it and no one to reward virtue. 

Naturally in plays setting forth so elaborate a scheme of alle- 
gory a number of similar aiDstractions occur, but there is no strik- 
ing similarity in the treatment. The explanations which the pages 
and heralds in the one play and Cupid and Mercury in the other 
give of the significance underlying the figures of the London 
Lords and of Jonson's masquers are alike in method and are occa- 
sionally of similar tenor. A good example is found in the account 
of Pleasure given by his poge Will (Hazlitt's Dodsley, Vol. VI, p. 
384) and in Mercury's description of Eupathes (HeJon, the Volup- 
tuous) in Cynthia's Revels (V, 3, p. 199). "And my lord,"' 
says Will, "is not Pleasure sprung of Voluptuousness, but of such 
honourable and kind conceit as heaven and humanity well brooks 
and allows : Pleasure pleasing, not pernicious." Mercury says of 
Eupathes: "All the objects of his senses are sumptuous, himself 
a gallant, that, without excess, can make use of superfluity, go 
richly in embroideries, jewels, and what not, without vanity, and 
fare delicately without gluttony." Obviously, however, the value 
of Wilson's play for Jonson lies not so much in its individual char- 
acters as in its pictures of courtly love and pageantry and in the 
symmetry and formality of its groups. 

The following tables show at a glance the plan of grouping in 
the two plays. Of course a few of the dramatis personae in each 
case, the citizen and wife and certain officials, for example, fall 
outside of the groups. The Three Lords and Three Ladies with 
its exact and mechanical balancing lends itself admirably to tabu- 
lation. Jonson's play is more difficult. Two of his pages are not 
allegorical figures hut the gods Mercury and Cupid, who must be 
disposed of while in disguise at Cynthia's court; and Argurion is 
omitted from the masque of women, being replaced by Gelaia, mis- 
tress and page of Anaides. 



256 



English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 






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Cynthia's Revels 



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258 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

This system of gronping by fours Jonson seems also to have 
carried into his character sketch of Crites (II, 1, pp. 161, 162). 
Crites is described on the basis of the four humours as "neither 
too fantastically melancholy, too slowly j)hlegmatic, too lightly 
sanguine, or too rashly choleric." He is of "a most ingenuous and 
sweet spirit, a sharp and seasoned wit, a straight judgment and a 
strong mind." Whatever determined Jonson's choice of four for 
his first group, the extension of the number to other groups and 
elements in the play would seem natural enough to an Elizabethan 
audience. Four, moreover, was perhaps a favorite number. Four 
court vices appear in Magnificence. Fours are frequent with Lyly, 
and they are the basis of the grouping in Love's Labour's Lost, a 
study of courtly love. In Harington's preface to Orlando Furioso 
there is described a "London Comedie," "the play of the Cards, in 
which it is showed how foure Parasiticall knaues robbe the foure 
principall vocations of the Eealme, videl. the vocation of Souldiers, 
Schoilers, Marchants, and Husbandmen" (Smith, Eliz. Crit. 
Essays, Vol. II, p. 210). Greene's Boyal Exchange (translated 
from the Italian in part) and Breton's Figure of Foure are works 
made up of bits of lore and wise saws, in each of which four things 
are grouped. There were also four humours, four elements, etc. 

In passing on to a study of the separate characters in Cynthia's 
Revels it is difficult to avoid repeating something of what has been 
said in regard to Every Man out, for Jonson's habit of returning 
to pre^dous motives and types is easily traceable in Cynthia's 
Revels; not only does the influence of formal satire which is so 
marked in Every Man out persist, but many of the characters in 
the later play have marked prototypes in the earlier. First of all, 
tlie scholar who appears casually in Every Man in and as satirist 
and intriguer in Every Man out becomes in Cynthia's Revels the 
ideal social and courtly type and is set in opposition to the forces 
of folly and ignorance. Hedon is a variation on Brisk, Amorphus 
on Puntarvolo, and Anaides on Carlo. Asotus is in some respects 
a recombination of Sogliardo and Fungoso, but is far removed from 
the early type seen in Stephen. The father of Asotus, Philargyrus, 
who is only mentioned, corresponds to Sordido. In place of one 
court lady in Every Man out, a whole group fairly close akin to 
her is substituted, but Philautia is nearest to Saviolina. Phantaste 
carries on to some extent the whimsicalities of Fallace. Deliro 



Cynthia's Revels 259 

and Fallace are dimly echoed in tlie citizen and wife of Cynthia's 
Revels, but in Mistress Downfall a new character is evolving which 
appears more fully elaborated in Chloe of Poetaster. In discuss- 
ing the characters of Cynthia's Revels, I shall attempt to deal only 
with new characteristics of the recurring types, new devices for 
dramatizing the satirical material, and such details of plot as are 
connected with only one or two characters and thus have not been 
treated in the discussion of the general plot. 

The strong hostility of certain characters to Crites, while alle- 
gorical in its significance, almost certainly reflects the hostility of 
others toward Jcnson, especially as these characters are chiefly lit- 
erary pretenders who attack the literary merit of Crites; and the 
strongly individualized portraits of some of the pretenders and 
the concreteness of the attack offer additional evidence that Jonson 
had contemporary litterateurs in mind. That at least Hedon and 
Anaides were taken by contemporaries as personal attacks is shown 
by a well known passage from Saliromastix (11. 430 15.). It is 
quite clear, I think, however, that Crites, though at times the 
mouthpiece of Jonson, is a type figure, and that the other charac- 
ters represent fundamentally typical humours. The types that 
offended, indeed, carry on previous studies, and any personal 
satire involved is added to the abstractions, as in the case of Carlo 
Buffone. It seems to me that even Demetrius and Crispinus of 
Poetaster are types in which is embodied a certain amount of per- 
sonal satire. Consequently, in studying the growth of Jonson's 
humour types, I have felt justified in disregarding the element of 
personal satire in Cynthia's Revels and have again dealt with the 
characters as literary types. 

The function of Crites, like that of Macilente, sets him in oppo- 
sition to the characters who represent social follies of the day, but 
the two are pretty distinct on the whole in methods and in char- 
acter. In the body of Every Man out Macilente seldom speaks 
except as the envious man, though envy gives him a chance for 
satire. He is also the arch intriguer delighting to bring the hu- 
mour characters into disgrace. The attitude of Crites to the fool- 
ish social types is supposedly that of indifferent contempt arising 
from his own rounded character. In a number of places, however, 
Jonson has spoiled the sublime indifference of his Crites by allow- 
ing him not only to assist in making the foolish courtiers ridiculous 



260 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

but also to express too strongly Jonson's own personal liostility to 
poetasters; and thus Crites echoes the personal indignation of 
Asper. In the main, however, the satire of Crites is calmer and 
more judicial. The most interesting bit of Crites' moralizing on 
manners forms a complete satire at the end of III, 2. It is a 
description of eight kindred types of foolish or vicious corn-tiers, 
and ends with a short sketch of a group of court women with their 
infinite small talk. The whole is exactly in the manner of con- 
temporary satires — a series of epigrammatic character sketches 
describing a procession of characters who are in the main varia- 
tions on one type and are often hardly to be distinguished except 
by sojne particular folly or fad of the day. Such groups are to be 
found in Donne's satires; in Guilpin's Skialetheia, satires III, IV, 
and V; and in Marston's Fygmalion's Image and Certain Satires, 
satires I, II, and III. All of these satires I have drawn upon to 
illustrate the treatment of the gallants in Every Man out, and 
they could equally well be used for many of the characters in 
Cynthia's Revels as well as for the sketches which Jonson puts in 
the mouth of Crites. Indeed, in this miniature satire Jonson 
seems to be describing several of his own types. The correspond- 
ence, however, is probably due to the fact that the sketches, like the 
characters of the plays, conform to certain narrow types that were 
evolving in the satire of the period and becoming conventional. 

In spite of the fact that Crites is at times the mouthpiece of the 
author, it must be borne in mind that for Jonson he represents 
the ideal — a thing of which every Renaissance humanist and edu- 
cator dreamed.^ Castiglione's Courtier is of course the most 
notable example, though there was considerable variation in the 
treatment of the supreme type. Jonson himself has presented his 
ideal in different lights. Asper in Every Man out is the ideal 
satirist in contrast with Macilente and Carlo, while Horace and 
Virgil are the ideal satirist and poet in contrast not only with the 
poetaster but also with the more dilettante ty]>e of real poet. In 
Crites we have Jonson's most rounded study of the ideal. The 
treatment, however, is not altogether consistent. A satirical bent 

^Mr. Woodward, Education during the Renaissance, especially chapters 
XTI and XIII, has emphasized very effectively the attention paid hy Re- 
naissance writers to the development of this ideal. I have already pointed 
out the fact that the elder Knowell in Every Man in echoes many of the 
educational ideals of the Renaissance. 



Cynthias Revels 261 

is Justifiable in a character hostile to vice ; but in spite of the fact 
that Jonson has embodied in Crites the medieval ideal of the clerk 
as contrasted with the knight or courtier, and, in opposition to 
the ideal oi birth and wealth, from which pride and scorn might be 
expected to spring, has made him of humble origin and moderate 
means, Crites has all the pride of the knight and the self-sufficiency 
and scorn that easily attend high rank. It is not strange, however, 
that the personal point of view entered into Jonson' s portrayal of 
Crites as into other Renaissance treatments of the ideal. 

The possible influence of Aristotle's portrait of "the highminded 
man" on Jonson's treatment of Crites has already been suggested. 
Aristotle conceives the highminded man as lofty in station and 
highly regarded, but aside from this difference practically every 
element of Jonson's ideal type is to be found in Aristotle's. Espe- 
cially is this true of the very qualities that have been regarded as 
identifying Crites with Jonson. Of his ideal type Aristotle says 
(IV, 7 and 8, pp. 113-118) : 

It would seem too that the highminded man possesses such greatness as 
belongs to every virtue. It would be wholly inconsistent with the char- 
acter of the highminded man to run away in hot haste, or to commit a 
crime . . . While the highminded man, then, as has been said, is prin- 
cipally concerned with honours, he will, at the same time, take a moderate 
view of wealth, political power, and good or ill fortune of all kinds, how- 
ever it may occur. He will not be excessively elated by good, or exces- 
sively depressed by ill fortune . . . The highminded man is justified 
in his contempt for others, as he forms a true estimate of them, but ordi- 
nary people have no such justification. Again, the highminded man is 
not fond of encountering small dangers, nor is he fond of encountering 
dangers at all. . . . But he is ready to encounter great dangers, and 
in the hour of danger is reckless of his life. . . . He will, of course, 
be open in his hatreds and his friendships, as secrecy is an indication of 
fear. He will care for reality more than reputation, he will be open in 
word and deed, as his superciliousness will lead him to speak his mind 
boldly. . . . He will not be a gossip, he will not talk much about 
himself or about anybody else; for he does not care to be praised himself 
or to get other people censured. . . . He is the kind of person who 
would rather possess what is noble, although it does not bring in profit, 
than what is profitable but not noble, as such a preference argues self- 
sufficiency. 

In II, 1 (pp. 161, 162) Mercury gives the following sketch of 
Crites : 



262 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

A creature of a most perfect and divine temper: one in whom the 
humours and elements are peaceably met, without emulation of precedency; 
he is neither too fantastically melancholy, too slowly phlegmatic, too 
lightly sanguine, or too rashly choleric; but in all so composed and 
ordered, as it is clear Nature went about some full work, she did more 
than make a man when she made him. His discourse is lilce his behaviour, 
uncommon, but not unpleasing; he is prodigal of neither. He strives 
rather to be that which men call judicious, than to be thought so; and 
is so truly learned, that he affects not to shew it. He will think and 
speak his thoughts both freely; but as distant from depraving another 
man's merit, as proclaiming his own. For his valour, 'tis such that he 
dares as little to offer an injury as receive one. In sum, he hath a most 
ingenuous and sweet spirit, a sharp and seasoned wit, a straight judg- 
ment and a strong mind. Fortune could never break him, nor make him 
less. He counts it his pleasure to despise pleasures, and is more delighted 
with good deeds than goods. It is a competency to him that he can be 
virtuous. He doth neither covet nor fear; he hath too much reason to do 
either; and that commends all things to him. 

The great resemblance between the character of Crites and what 
we know of Jonson's own mode of behavior in relation to his 
enemies is thus fonnd largely in the details which reflect Aris- 
totle's ideal. It is not at all improbable that Jonson's arrogance, 
frank egoism, and imcompromising attitude to those he scorned 
appealed to him as in keeping with the standard of conduct that 
Aristotle sets for the highminded man. Unfortunately there was 
too strong a tendency in Jonson's nature to insolence and egoism, 
but in the light of his "unselfish devotion to what he conceived as 
the highest literary standards and of his faitlifulness, in the face 
of poverty, to a type of work that was slow, painstaking, and prob- 
ably less remunerative than he was capable of, it is pleasant to 
think that even his most repellent characteristics may have been 
partly the resuH of an honest effort not to set too base a value 
upon his gifts and his calling. This is the attitude that marks 
his famous defence of his blunt claim that Cynthia's Bevels is good. 
The passage, which occurs in the prologue to Poetaster, suggests 
Aristotle's highminded man and mentions the mean : 

Here now, put case our author should, once more, 
Swear that his play were good; he doth implore, 
You would not argue him of arrogance: 
Howe'er that common spawn of ignorance. 
Our fry of writers, may beslime his fame. 
And give his action that adulterate name. 



Cynthia's Revels 263 

Such full-blown vanity he more doth loathe, 
Than base dejection: there's a mean 'twixt both, 
Which with a constant firmness he pursues, 
As one that knows the strength of his own Muse. 
And this he hopes all free souls will allow: 
Others that take it with a rugged brow, 
Their modes he rather pities than envi§s: 
His mind it is above their injuries. 

In connection with Jonson's supposed identity with Crites, it is 
interesting to read Castiglione's defence against the charge that he 
portrays himself in his ideal type, the courtier (Courtier, Tudor 
Translations, Epistle of the Author, p. 23) : 

Some again say that my meaning was to facion my self, perswading 
my self that all suche qualities as I appoint to the Courtier are in me. 
Unto these men I will not cleane deny that I have attempted all that my 
mynde is the Courtier shoulde have knowleage in. And I thinke who so 
hath not the knowleage of the thinges intreated upon in this booke, how 
learned so ever he be, he can full il write them. 

There is also in the first hook of The Courtier (pp. 50, 51) a dis- 
cussion of self-praise that probably expresses perfectly Jonson's 
attitude to himself and his work. 

He that is of skill, whan he seeth that he is not knowen for his woorkes 
of the ignoraunte, hath a disdeigne that his connynge should lye buried, 
and needes muste he open it one waie, least he should bee defrauded of 
the estimation that belongeth to it, whiche is the true rewarde of vertuous 
travailes. Therefore among the auncient writers he that muche excelleth 
doeth sildome forbeare praisyng hymself. They in deede are not to be 
borne withall that havyng no skill in theym, wyll prayse themselves: but 
we wyll not take our Courtyer to be suche a one. 

Then the Count: Yf you have well understoode (quoth he) I blamed 
the praysynge of a mans selfe impudently and withoute respecte. And 
surelye (as you saye) a man ought not to conceyve an yll oppinion of a 
skilfull man that praiseth hymselfe dyscretely, but rather take it for a 
more certaine witnes, then yf it came out of an other mans mouth. 

For the character of Crites as the rounded man there are one or 
two parallels in the earlier drama. For example, the character 
sketch of Crites quoted above (p. 262) opens with a sentence that 
has often been compared with Antony's tribute to Brutus in Julius 
Caesar (V, 5) : 

His life was gentle; and the elements 

So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up 

And say to the world. This was a man! 



264 



English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 



Of the four men opposed to Crites, Amorphus is apparently the 
leader. In the plot of the play Asotus is closely associated with 
him as an understudy, while Pledon and Anaides usually appear 
together. Amorphus continues Puntarvolo in a number of 
respects, both representing extravagance and formality in speech 
and behavior. The following are some of the suggestive parallels 
between the two characters : 



Puntarvolo 

'A vainglorious knight." 

'So palpably affected to his own 
praise . . . that he com- 
mends himself" (p. 62). 



"Wholly consecrated to singularity." 

Sticks "to his own particular fash- 
ion, phrase, and gesture" (p. 
62). 

"Jacob's staff of compliment" (p. 
62). 

A pompous speaker (II, 1). 

Speaks French and Italian (II, 1, 

p. 84). 
"A sir that hath lived to see the 

revolution of time in most of 

his apparel" (p. 62). 
"Looks like the sign of the George" 

(II, 1, p. 82). 
Looks "as if he . . . had a suit 

of wainscot on" (II, 1, p. 84). 
Has his beard starched (IV, 4, p. 

116). 
"He deals upon returns" (p. 62 ) . 

The gull Fungoso is his godchild 
(II, 1, p. 85). 



Amorphus 

Praises himself extravagantly at 
first appearance (I, 1, p. 152). 

Is first to drink of the Fountain of 
Self-Love. 

"He is his own promoter in every 
place" (II, 1, p. 161). 

Claims that his behavior is not 
cheap or customary, his accent 
and phrase not vulgar, his gar- 
ments not trite (I, 1, p. 152). 

"The very mint of compliment" (II, 
1, p. 161). 

"Cannot speak out of a dictionary 
method" (IV, 1, p. 175). 

Speaks Italian and Spanish (I, 1, 
p. 154). 

"No great shifter; once a year his 
apparel is ready to revolt" (II, 
1, p. 161). 

"Looks like a Venetian trumpeter 
. . . in the gallery yonder" 
(IV, 1, p. 171). 

"His beard is an Aristarchus" (II, 

1, p. 161). 
"Has made the sixth return upon 

venture" (I, 1, 152). 
The gull Asotus is his protegg. 



But in spite of their common characteristics Amorphus difEers 
considerably from Puntarvolo. Though both make ventures upon 
returns, Amorphus as a traveler is primarily the boaster, the liar. 
He is evidently poor, as his intelligence is made to pay for his 
travels (I, 1, p. 155), and the wife of the ordinary gives him his 
diet for his talk. He is an arbiter of quarrels but a coward (II, 1, 



Cynthia's Revels 265 

p. 161), whereas Piintarvolo is dangerous. Altogether he is a fax 
less dignified and honorable figure than Puntarvolo. His skill in 
"compliment" lies in the use not of antiquated chivalric customs 
like Puntarvolo's but of an exaggerated type of up-to-date court- 
ship, no doubt something like the actual courtship of the Ital- 
ianate lovers in Elizabeth's court. The sketch of Castillo in the 
first satire of Pygmalion's Image and Certain Satires, which has 
already been quoted in connection with Puntarvolo, is perhaps still 
more appropriate to Amorphus in some details. Amorphus is pre- 
eminently the one who "can all the points of courtship show." He 
is, indeed, the instructor of the neophyte Asotus in lovers' arts and 
is grandmaster in the duello of courtship. 

The most interesting new phase in the characterization of Amor- 
phus is his lying in regard to his travels. A kindred treatment is 
often seen in the braggart soldier. Bobadill, who like Amorphus 
is a master of the duello, a coward, and poor, has tales to tell not 
only of his exploits in war but of marvelous experiences with 
tobacco in strange countries. Amorphus owes nothing to the 
boastful soldier, however; his lying is of another type. One of his 
clearest forerunners is Mendax of Bullein's Dialogue against the 
Fever Pestilence (pp. 94 fl:.). Mendax, who resembles Amorphus 
in being poor and dressing oddly, sharpens his knife on a whet- 
stone when he is summoned to eat with Civis. Amorphus, it will 
be remembered, is followed by a page Cos, the whetstone. Mendax 
also has his accomplishments; he can play the zittern and dance. 
His boasts are of his ancestry and of his marvelous adventures with 
strange beasts and strange men, in lands of fabulous wealth, etc., 
while Amorphus has been incredibly honored by potentates wher- 
ever he has gone and "sued to, by all ladies and beauties" (IV, 1, 
p. 178). Mendax, however, tells a tale of a marvelous beer that he 
drank in his travels which matches Amorphus's remark al)out meth- 
eglin, a kind of Greek wine that he once came upon while roam- 
ing the earth, the very kind usually drunk by Demosthenes, in fact. 

In Wits Miserie, which satirizes, indeed, practically every folly 
that the satirists and the satiric dramatists handle, there are a 
number of scattered passages suggesting Amorphus. Vainglory 
(pp. 3-5), in the "coat of Singularity," boasts of his travels, of 
honors paid him by foreign princes, and especially of gifts in the 
way of articles of dress. His hat, he claims, was bestowed upon 



266 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

him by Heniy II of France.^ "All that hee hath of you beleeue 
Mm/' Lodge says, "are but gifts in reward of his vertue." 
Vainglory also pretends to learning and to musical skill. "Hee 
will prooue Kamus to be a deeper Philosopher than Aristotle, and 
presume to read the Mathematiques to the studious . . . vrge 
him in Musike, he will sweare to it, that he is A per se in it, where 
hee is skillesse in Proportion, ignorant in Discord," etc. So Amor- 
phus arrogantly lays claim to a knowledge of the niceties of verse 
and music (IV, 1, pp. 178, 179). Again, Boasting of Wits Miserie 
(p. 10), who makes pretensions to literary gifts, declares, "Perseus 
is a foole in his stile, & an obscure Poet." Lucian, Amorphus pro- 
nounces absurd. "I will believe mine own travels before all the 
Lucians of Europe" (I, 1, p. 153). Lying (p. 35) is described 
by Lodge as "a sonne of Mammons that hath of long time ben a 
trauailer." His tales are more like those of Mendax than those 
of Amoi-phus, being accounts of strange sights in foreign coun- 
tries. Another of Lodge's characters is "Superfluous Inuention or 
ISTouel-monger or Fashions," who invents new sauces and banquets 
and absurd fashions (p. 13). Asotus of Cynthia's Revels "doth 
learn to make strange sauces, to eat anchovies, maccaroni, bovoli, 
fagioli, and caviare, because he [Amorphus] loves them" (II, 1, 
p. 161). Amorphus's garments, too, are not trite (I, 1, p. 152). 
In comparing himself with Ctites, Amorphus asks (IV, 1, p. 181), 
"Have not I invention afore him? learning to better that inven- 
tion above him? and inf anted with pleasant travel — " Finally, in 
the sketch of Derision, part of which I have quoted in discussing 
Carlo (p. 171 supra), there is an expression that is interesting in 
connection with the meaning of Amorphus, deformed — "At the 
length hee prooueth deformity himself" (p. 10).- 

Among the verse satirists, Guilpin in SJcialetheia, Satire I, has 
a sketch of the boasting traveler who can tell of the remotest 
cranny of this world and has discovered some half dozen other 
worlds. With him Guilpin associates the antiquary, who displays 
souvenirs of various famous personages, including Cupid and 
Charlemagne. So the hat which Amorphus gives Asotus is said 
to have accompanied L^lysses on his travels (I, 1, p. 155). Hall in 

^Cf. the hat of Amorphus, I, 1. p. 155. 

^Cf. Penniman, War of the Theatres, p. 94, n. 2, for theories in regard to 
the "one Deformed" of Much Ado. 



Cynthia's Revels 267 

Virgidemiaruin, IV, 6, satirizes the "sweet-sauc'd lies of some false 
traveller" who has read the "whet-stone leasings of old Mandeville/' 
and mentions the same kind of marvels that Bullein and Lodge 
mention. 

One of the remarkable boasts of Amorphus is that he has been 
"fortunate in the amours of three hundred forty and five ladies, 
all nobly, if not princely descended" (I, 1, p. 152) and that he 
"never .yet sojourned or rested in that place or part of the world, 
where some high-born, admirable, fair feature died not for my 
love" (IV, 1, p. 178). Nashe in Haue with you to Saffron-walden 
{Works, III, p. Ill) accuses Harvey of breeding "an opinion in 
the world, that he is such a great man in Ladies and Gentlewomens 
hoolces that they are readie to run out of their wits for him, as in 
the TurJces Alchoron it is written that 250. Ladies hanged them- 
selues for the loue of Mahomet."^ 

Asotus, - the protege of Amorphus, is in some respects a develop- 
ment out of Fungoso in Every Man out. Both are upstarts and 
gulls, and both show the youth, fine dress, and eagerness to follow 
the fashion which belong to the type. Toq much has been made 
of the similarity, however, by those who would identify Asotus and 
Fungoso with Lodge — Fleay, Penniman, and Hart. Asotus is 
rather distinct. Fungoso's chief claim to distinction lies in his 
effort to copy Brisk's suits, and that is made amusing largely 
through the pitiful shifts to which he is put in order to get the 
necessary money. But Asotus is a figure of lavishness. More- 
over, he is not a follower afar of the elegant Hedon, as Fungoso is 
of Brisk, but associates himself with Amorphus, who corresponds 
to Pimtarvolo. Again, a prominent feature in the characteriza- 
tion of Asotus is his careful training as an amorist and his accep- 
tance at court by Argurion, to which nothing in the treatment of 
Fungoso corresponds. In his inheritance of wealth and his train- 
ing at the hands of Amorphus Asotus corresponds to the wealthy 

^In // Henry IV, III, 1, where Justice Shallow is characterized as a 
braggart, it is said of him that he "came ever in the rearward of the 
fashion." In Cynthia's Revels, IV, 1, pp. 171 f., Philautia declares that 
Amorphus "speaks to the tune of a country lady, that comes ever in the 
rearward or train of a fashion." 

-The full name of Asotus is Acolastus-Polypragmon-Asotus (V, 2, p. 
186). "Busie Polypragmon" is mentioned in the sixth satire of Guilpin's 
Skialetheia. Gnapheus's famous Latin play on the Prodigal is called 
Acolastus; Macropedius's, Asotus. 



268 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

Sogliardo trained by Shift in the gallant accomplishments of taking 
tobacco, and swearing and swaggering at taverns, but the instruc- 
tion which Asotus receives is in such courtly accomplishments as 
making set speeches. Thus, though a gull and a mere ape as 
Sogliardo and Fungoso are, Asotus is a far more brilliant figure. 

The characterization of Asotus is largely subordinated to that 
of his sponsor Amorphus, and it is chiefly the association between 
the two that links Asotus with other literary treatments. Satire 
on the infatuation between gallants at first sight, their praise of 
each other's dress, their exchange of gifts, etc., which we have in 
the meeting between Amorphus and Asotus (I, 1), is not uncom- 
mon. Chapman in An Humorous Day's Mirth satirizes frivolous 
talk among gallants, especially the praise of each other's form and 
fashion (p. 35). In Histriomastix, during the reign of Pride, 
Vainglory, Hypocrisy, and Contempt, four abstractions symbolic 
of luxuriousness and excess in social life, and not unlike the four 
gallants of Cynthia's Revels, Ma.vortius and Philarchus comment 
on each other's apparel, Philarchus's hat being pronounced of better 
block than that of Mavortius (III, 11. 123-132). In Act IV of the 
same play (11. 169-173), one of the players praises his ingle's hilt 
and has it bestowed upon him. An elaborate dramatization of the 
ingling of foolish gallants introduces Amorphus and Asotus to us 
in Cynthia's Revels. Amorphus praises various articles of Asotus's 
apparel, especially his beaver, which is exceedingly fine, and accepts 
the hat as a gift, projffering in exchange his own, which is decidedly 
dilapidated. 

A striking parallel to the relationship between Amorphus and 
Asotus in Cynthia's Revels is to be found in the friendship of 
Pseudocheus and Gelasimus in Timon. Hart {Worhs of Ben Jon- 
son. Vol. I, p. xliv) has called attention to a kinship between the 
two plays and has pointed out some details. The relationship pos- 
sibly deserves further study, for, if Timon is the earlier, as Hart be- 
lieves,^ Jonson certainly followed the play very closely. The char- 
acterization of Gelasimus and Asotus is much the same. Both are 
citizen's heirs, wealthy, and just beginning to taste with extrav- 
agance the experiences of gallantry. Asotus is the son of Phil- 

^Cf. pp. 168 ff. and 209 f. supra for some discussion of the relative 
dates. 



Cynthia's Bevels 369 

argyrus and becomes tlie accepted lover of Argurion, while the 
same allegory is carried out in Timon by the love of Gelasimus 
for the daughter of Philargurus.^ The personal appearance of 
Gelasimus also tallies with that of Asotus. The beard of Gelasi- 
mus is undeveloped; he has small, gentleman-like ankles; ladies 
wish for features like his (I, 3) ; and Pseudocheus calls him "a 
spruce, neate youth" (I, 4).^ Asotus's beard, according to Mercury, 
"is not yet extant" (II, 1, p. 161) ; Amorphus pronounces his new 
acquaintance "a pretty formal young gallant" (I, 1, p. 153) ; and 
Argurion speaks of him as "a most delicate youth; a sweet face, a 
sitraight body, a well proportioned leg and foot, a white hand, a 
tender voice" (IV, 1, p. 172). In the early part of each play 
the gull leagues himself with the boasting traveler, and the 
two situations are handled alike. In Timon Gelasimus, entering 
with his page Psedio, is joined by Pseudocheus, the returning trav- 
eler, whose absurd exaggeration and inordinate vainglory suggest 
the boaster of Latin comedy. Pseudocheus boasts of his travels in 
remote lands and of the honors conferred upon him by foreign 
potentates, and he brings home souvenirs of his travels. His chief 
concern, like that of Amorphus, however, is not to rouse wonder 
but to glorify himself. In Cynthia's Bevels Asotus enters with 
Crites, who like the page of Gelasimus comments satirically as the 
scene progresses. The boasting of Amorphus is more rational than 
that of Pseudocheus, but not a whit less vainglorious. The follow- 
ing passages, which describe the meeting between the pair in each 
play, will indicate the relation, 

^The allegorical use of this name is apparently rather frequent. Accord- 
ing to Warton, Skelton's Nigramansir had a character called Philargyria. 
A work entitled Philargyrie of greate Britayne, 1551, is mentioned by 
Dyce in The Wo7-ks of Skelton, Vol. I, p. cxxix. 

^The page tells Gelasimus in regard to virgins' opinion of him, 

This the like eyes, that the like nose desires; 
This your cheekes, and that your leggs. 

Compare Crites' satire on ladies' talk about gallants (III, 2, p. 168) : 

Where you shall hear one talk of this man's eye, 
Another of his lip, a third, his nose, 
A fourth commend his leg, a fifth, his foot, 
A sixth, his hand, and every one a limb. 

Cf. also Dowsecer in An Humorous Day's Mirth, p. 33. 



270 



English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 



Cynthia's Revels, I, 1 
Amo. Ha! a pretty formal young 
gallant, in good sooth . 
Hark you, Crites, you may say to 
him what I am, if you please. 

Aso. Crites, . . . pray you 
make this gentleman and I friends. 
. . . In good faith he's a most 
excellent rare man, I warrant him. 
. . . And withal, you may tell 
him what my father was, and how 
well he left me, and that I am his 
heir. ... gods! I'd give all 
the world, if I had it, for abundance 
of such acquaintance. 

Amo. Since I trod on this side 
the Alps, I was not so frozen in my 
invention. Let me see. . . . 
Feign to have seen him in Venice 
or Padua! or some face near his in 
similitude! ... or ... 
come to some special ornament 
about himself, as his rapier, or 
some other of his accoutrements? I 
have it: thanks, gracious Minerva! 

Aso. Would I had but once spoke 
to him, and then — He comes to me! 

Amo. I think I shall affect you, 
sir. . . . 

Aso. O lord, sir! I would there 
were anything in me, sir, that 
might appear worthy the least 
worthiness of your worth. . . . 

Amo. . . . Good faith, this 
hat hath possest mine eye exceed- 
ingly; 'tis so pretty and fantastic: 
what! is it a beaver? 

Aso. Sir, it is all at your service. 

Amo. I take your love, gentle 
Asotus; but let me win you to re- 
ceive this, in exchange — 



Timon, I, 4 
Gel. Shall I speake to him, 
Paedio? he seemes 
A man of greate accompt, that hath 

oreveiu'd 
Soe many countreyes : what shall I 

saye first? 
Shall I salute him after our man- 
ner? 
Pseud. A spruce, neate youth: 

what, yf I affront him? 
(Jel. Good gods, how earnestlie 
doe I desire 
His ffellowshipp ! was I e're soe 

shamefac't? 
What yf I send and gyue to him 
my cloake? 
Pseud. What shall I saye? I 
saw his face at Thebes 
Or Sioilie? 

Gel. He send it. Psedio, 
Gyue him this cloake: salute him 

in my name; 
H'st, thou may'st tell him, yf thou 

wilt, how rich 
My ffather was. 

Pseud. Tell him I will salute 

him. 
Peed. The strainger, sir, desires 

to salute you. 
Gel. That's my desire: I will 

meete him. 
Pseud. I will affront him. 
Gel. I wish admittance of so- 

cietie. 

Pseud. I thee admitt, thou 
needst not be ashamed; 

Gel. Lord, what a potent friend 
haue I obteyned! — 

Pseud. This ring he [the king 

of the Antipodes] gaue me. 
Gel. Prythee, lett me se it. 



Cynthia's Revels 271 

Amo. Sir, shall I say to you for Wilt thou that wee exchainge, my 
that hat? . . . It is a relic I Pylades? 

could not so easily have departed Pseud. I am a man; He not 

with, but as the hieroglyphic of my denye my ffreind. — 

affection . . . and was given By Joue, my ringe is made of 
me by a great man in Russia, as an brasse, not gould. [Aside. 

especial prized present. . . . Gel. happie me, that weares 

Aso. By Jove, I will not depart the kings owne ringe 

withal, whosoever would give me a Of th' Antipodes ! 
million. Pseud. Soe I blesse my ffriends. 

In both, plays the traveler immediately takes the citizen's heir 
in charge and begins to train him in the art of love makin,g. The 
first lesson that Amorphus gives Asotus is a study of the various 
kinds of faces^ the merchant's, the courtier's, etc. (II, 1, p. 160). 
Gelasimus is a master of assumed gravity in countenance before he 
meets Pseudocheus (I, 3).^ The instruction of Pseudocheus as to 
hoAV to approach a mistress is of a kind with that of Amorphus but 
cruder and less elaborate. Pseudocheus recommends merriment^ 
dancing, and pricksong. In Timon, after some preliminary 
instruction master and pupil present themselves at the home of 
Callimela (II, 1). The final injunction of Pseudocheus is, "It is 
a synn to blush: be impudent"; and Gelasimus replies, "I blush! 
I scorne to blush." Once in the presence of his beloved, Gelasimus 
pours out the mixture of pricksong and lover's jargon which Pseu- 
docheus has taught him ; but, as the conversation proceeds, he has 
to be prompted again and again, and each time he repeats word 
for word the phrases of his tutor. So under the direction of 
Amorphus (III, 1 and 3) Asotus practices how to conduct 
himself in the presence of a mistress, learning by rote the set 
speeches suggested by Amorphus, and later repeating them for the 
benefit of the ladies. A part of his exercise consists of dancing 
and singing (III, 3, p. 170). According to Amorphus, one advan- 
tage of his protege's novitiate at court is that it will teach him 

*The practiced faces of gallants are several times satirized by Guilpin. 
In Epigram 30 of Skialetheia he says : 

Chrysogonus each morning by his glasse, 
Teacheth a wrincled action to his face. 

In Satire V, he speaks of one who "wries his face" and of a troop who 

look 

As if their very countenaunces would sweare, 
The Spanyard should conclude a peace for feare. 



273 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

''to be careless and impudent" (III, 1, p. 165), and Asotus so far 
profits by his opportunities that he is soon bestowing on Anaides 
a ruby ring, with an inscription of his own device, ^'Lct this hlush 
for me" (IV, 1, p. 182). In Timon the relationship between the 
pair leads finally to the complete gulling of the "cittie heyre." In 
Cynthia's Revels Araorphus continues to tutor Asotus seriously in 
the conduct of courtship, and the whole treatment is greatly 
expanded.^ 

An earlier example of the association between this pair is to be 
found in The Defence of Conny-catching {Worhs of Greene, Vol. 
XI, pp. 72 ff.), wliere the braggart traveler is treated as a type of 
coney-catcher. Dressed in extravagant foreign fashion, he haunts 
the resorts of gallants with his eye open for "nouvices." He has a 
''superficial! insight into certain phiases of euerie language" — com- 
pare Amorphus's "choice remnant of Spanish or Italian" (I, 1, 
p. 154) — and speaks glowingly of foreign countries and especially 
of the advantages of travel. The interest here centers in his 
scheme for gulling the novice, and the account is thus very much 
nearer to the treatment of the traveler in Timon than in Cynthia's 
Revels. Indeed, this sketch of the pretended traveler in The De- 
fence of Conny-catching may well have served as the source for 
the denouement of the plot of Timon so far as Pseudocheus and 
Gelasimus are concerned. - 

Jonson's third courtier, Hedon, is complementary to Amorphus, 
the two representing two aspects of the courtier which are often in 
contrast. It will be remembered that in discussing Brisk and Pun- 
tarvolo, the forerunners of Hedon and Amorphus in Every Man 
out, I attempted to show that the same line of cleavage was recog- 
nized in other literary treatments of social types, especially in the 
satire of Guilpin and Marston, but that the characteristics of the 
two types were not always distinct. Marston's sketch of Castilio, 
which shows best the confusion of the types, contains some lines 

^The relationship between these two plays is exceedingly tantalizing. 
Compare, for example, the speech of Gelasimus (III, 3) when Callimela 
casts him off. with the soliloquy of Amorphus (T, 1) when Echo flies from 
him. With totally dissimilar wording the passages are still evidently akin. 

^Prof. Penniman (War of the Theatres, p. 89) notes the fact that Asotus 
(V, 2, p. 190) quotes from Davies, Epigram 29. This is interesting here 
only as another indication of the extensive use which Jonson seems to 
have made of the epigrams of Davies. 



Cynthia's Revels 373 

that fit Hedon better than they do any of the other characters to 
whom the sketch has been applied : 

Tut! he is famous for his revelling, 

For fine set speeches, and for sonnetting; 

He scorns the viol and the scraping stick. 

Amorphus and Hedon blend chiefly in their absorption in the game 
of love, though Amorphus centers his attention largely on the 
machinery of courtship. It is clear, however, that Hedon belongs 
first of all to the type represented in Brisk, the gallant who is 
elegant and dapper and who follows the conventions of courtship. 
The type is constantly satirized, and the character sketches given 
above as illustrative of Brisk often fit Hedon also. The two are 
alike in their love of elegant dress and rich perfume, in having 
almost reached the end of their money and their credit as a result 
of high living, in their constant attention to courtship, particu- 
larly in the effort to win the admiration of ladies by their activity, 
and finally in their affectation of euphuistic address, neat or witty 
conceits, etc.'^ But these correspondences are in the main general, 
and the specific fads of Hedon even in dress and pastimes differ 
from those of Brisk. The difference is largely one of social class, 
for in spite of his access to court. Brisk is only a mimic courtier, 
and the world in which he really shines is that of the citizen. 
Indeed, Jonson has represented the characters of Cynthia's Revels 
on the whole as of a higher social grade than those of the preced- 
ing play, with natural reserve, assurance, pride, etc. 

ISTashe, whose picture of the upstart has been discussed above 
(pp. 188 f.) for its bearing upon the literary treatment of the 
Brisk-Hedon type, gives in the Epistle Dedicatory to Lenten Stuffe 
(Works of Nashe, Vol. Ill, pp. 148, 149) a character sketch that 
tallies surprisingly with the sketch which Mercury gives of Hedon 
(I, 1, pp. 157, 158). It is the more interesting because in a num- 
ber of points it corresponds to the characterization of Hedon and 
yet will not fit the figure of Brisk. ISTashe says : 

To any other carpetmunger or primerose knight of Primero bring I a 
dedication, and the dice ouer night haue not 'befriended him, hee sleepes 
fine dayes and fiue nights to new skin his ieautie, and icill not hee knowne 
hee is aicakt till his men vppon their owne hondes . . . haue tooke 

^For Hedon cf. especially the character sketch II, 1, pp. 157, 158. 



374 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

vp commodities or fresh droppings of the minte for him: and then; what 
then? he payes for the ten dozen of balles hee left vppon the score at the 
tennis court; hee sendes for his Barber to depure, decurtate, and spunge 
him., lohome hauing not paide a tioelmonth before, he now raines downe 
eight quarter angels into his hande, to make his liberaMtie seeme greater. 
. . . The chamber is not ridde of the smell of his feet, hut the greasie 
shoomaker . . . enters . . . and after shelves his tally. By S. Loy, 
that drawes deepe, and by that time his Tobacco marchant is made euen 
with, and hee hath dinde at a tauerne, and slept his vnder-meale at a 
baivdy house, his purse is on the heild and only fortie shillings hee hath 
behinde, to trie his fortune with at the cardes in the presence; which if 
it prosper, | the court cannot containe him, but to London againe he will, 
to reuell it, and haue tioo playes in one night, inuite all the Poets and 
Musitions to his chamber the next morning; where, against theyr com- 
ming, a whole heape of money shall bee bespread vppon the boord, and all 
his trunkes opened to sheioe his rich sutes; but the deuill a whit hee be- 
stowes on them, saue bottle ale and Tobacco; and desires a generall meet- 
ing. 

Compare with this the sketch of Hedon : 

Himself is a rhymer, and that's thought better than a poet. He is not 
lightly within to his mercer, no, though he come when he takes physic, 
which is commonly after his play. He beats a tailor very well, but a 
stocking-seller admirably: and so consequently any one he owes money to, 
that dares not resist him. He never makes general invitement, but 
against tlie publishing of a new suit; marry, then you shall have more 
drawn to his lodging, than come to the launching of some three ships; 
especially if he be furnished with supplies for the retiring of his old ward- 
robe from pawn : if not, he does hire a stock of apparel, and some forty 
or fifty pound in gold, for that forenoon, to shew. He . . . some- 
times ventures so far upon the virtue of his pomander, that he dares tell 
. . . how many shirts he has sweat at tennis that week; but wisely 
conceals so many dozen of balls he is on the score. 

In the characterization of Hedon, a great deal of attention is 
given to the ek^gant accomplishments which make him a leading 
figure in the court circle. He devises set speeches showing wit 
of the euphuistic type; invents pretty oaths, wishes, prophecies, and 
posies for rings (II, 1, pp. 158, 159) ; and composes both the 
"ditty, and the note" to a song on a kiss given him by his lady 
(IV, 1, pp. 177, 178). Crites ridicules him for the conceits in 
his love poetry (V, 2, p. 194). In other words, he is the typical 
courtly lover. Amorphus, too, in rivalry of Hedon, sings a song 
on the glove of one of his victims. Of the many satiric references 
to the frivolous subjects of current love poetry, it will suffice to 



Cynthia's Revels 275 

quote one from Nashe, who says in Lenten Stuffe (Works, Vol. 
Ill, p. 176) : ''The wantonner sort of them [oaten pipers] sing 
descant on their mistris gloue, her ring, her fanne, her looking 
glasse, her pantofle, and on the same iurie I might impannell 
lohannes Secundus, with his booke of the | two hundred kinde of 
kisses." The poet-lover's hackneyed comparisons in praise of 
beauty are satirized by Jonson in Mercury's trial at the "Solemn 
Address" (V, 2, pp. 192, 193) and in Crites' burlesque of Hedon 
(V, 2, p. 194). Fleay (Biographical Chr'onicle of the English 
Drama, Vol. I, p. 97) cites Sonnet 19 of Daniel's Delia for its 
similarity to Hedon's figures. The basis of the compliment which 
Crites ascribes to Hedon — that a mistress's "beauty is all composed 
of theft" — may be unusual, but the figures which make up the 
lover's rhapsodies of both Crites and Mercury are usual enough, 
practically all of them occurring, for example, within pages 82 to 
89 of England's Helicon according to BuUen's edition of 1899. 
In Love's Labour's Lost (IV, 3) the King satirizes the effusions of 
lovers who protest of their ladies 

One's hairs were gold, crystal the other's eyes. 

The use of the names Ambition and Honor by Hedon and Phil- 
autia probably represents another convention of courtship. In 
Every Man out Sogliardo and Shift call each other Countenance 
and Resolution. Such names, however, doubtless belong to courtly 
love as in Cynthia's Revels, rather than to ingling, as in Every 
Man Old. In Gaseoigne's Adventures of Master F. I. Ferdinando 
and Frances give each other the names Trust and Hope, and play 
upon them as Hedon and Philautia play upon Ambition and Honor 
in. Cynthia's Revels. The games at which Hedon is clever are 
often mentioned in the period. Lodge in Wits Miserie (p. 47) 
says of Fornication, "Put him to a sonnet, Du Portes cannot 
equall him; ... at Piddles, he is good; at Purposes, better; 
but at Tales he hath no equall." Here we have the chief accom- 
plishments of the courtly lover. Purposes as a game is mentioned 
as early as The Courtier (p. 33). The line, 

He that can purpose it in dainty rhymes, 

in Marston's sketch of the "absolute Castillo" seems to refer to the 
same game. In one of his early works G-ascoigne says (Poe-ms, 



276 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

Vol. 1, pp. 47^ 48) : "The Aucthor knowing that after supper they 
should passe the tyme in propounding of Eyddles and making of 
purposes, contriued all this conceipt in a Riddle." Then follow 
two riddles. "An excellent dreame of ladies, and their riddles" is 
given in the Cambridge History of English Literature (Vol. IV, 
p. 135) as the title of a poem by Breton which appears in The 
Phoenix Nest. When Philautia suggests riddles or purposes as a 
pastime in Cynthia's Bevels, Phantaste is in favor of prophecies 
because the others are stale (IV, 1, p, 175). Apparently new 
games are chosen, and these I have not found mentioned elsewhere. 
According to Mercury, Anaides "has two essential parts of the 
courtier, pride and ignorance; marry, the rest come somewhat after 
the ordinary gallant" (II, 1, p. 159). The character is a complex 
one. Anaiides is first of all a near kinsman of Carlo Buffone. 
Both are impudent jesters, railers, detractors, sycophants, and 
haunters of ordinaries; both are given to drinking and swearing 
and to lewdness.^ The two characters are very distinct, neverthe- 
less. Carlo, of whom it is expressly said that he "comes not at 
court" (IV, 6, p. 123), is a mere "feast-hound" following the great, 
who feed and tolerate him, whereas Anaides is a courtier and "a 
man of fair living" (IV, 1, p. 174). The chief difference between 
the two to my mind is that in passing on to Anaides Jonson has 
shifted his emphasis. Anaides is a jester and railer, but in the 
action of the play he is important chiefly in his relation to Crites 
and Hedon as literary men. Indeed, nearly all his participation 
in the plot may be taken as literary allegory. He is a type of the 
vulgar, the untrained, scorning scholarship and refinement. He 
associates himself with Hedon, the rhymer, the popular and arti- 
ficial love poet, and leads in the hostility against Crites, the scholar 
and genuine literary man. He has thus formed a new literary 
alliance, for Carlo, though he fears Macilente, yet seeks to ally 
himself with him. There is also the same difference between 
Carlo and Anaides that Ave find between Asper and Crites. Asper 
and Carlo represent merely two phases of satire, but the treatment 
of Crites and Anaides is much broader in its literary significance. 

^Cf . Every Man out, prefatory character sketch of Carlo, p. 62 ; induc- 
tion, p. 71; and I, 1, p. 76: Cynthia's Revels, II, 1, p. 1.59; III, 2, pp. 
165-167; IV, 1, pp. 172, 174, and 179; and V. 2, pp. 187-189. Small, 
Stage-Quarrel, p. 34, has tabulated most of the important correspond- 
ences. 



Cynthia's Bevels 377 

Anaides is not the bujffoon with respect to his satiric vein alone, but 
as a literary man in general, and especially as a critic. Anaides 
"speaks all that comes in his cheeks"; will absurdly censure any 
thing; and "does naturally admire his wit that wears gold lace or 
tissue" (II, 1, p. 159). He has put Crites down a thousand times, 
he says, though he has talked to him only twice and Crites has 
laughed at him for not being able to construe an author quoted by 
Anaides himself (IV, 1, p. 181). 

Anaides continues so many of the characteristics of Carlo that 
the study of Carlo as a buffoon and a type of detraction will serve 
for many phases of the character of Anaides. The new phase in 
the treatment of the type, the great elaboration of literary jealousy, 
is well illustrated by the satirists. Professor Penniman has noted 
the fact that the charges of Anaides against Crites as well as those 
of Demetrius against Horace echo Lodge's study of literary jeal- 
ousy.^ In fact, Anaides, like Carlo, is a figure much in the style 
of Lodge, and several passages from Wits Miserie besides those 
quoted in connection with Carlo are interesting in connection with 
Anaides. After telling how Adulation praises whatever his lord 
writes. Lodge continues (pp. 20, 21) : "Of al things he cannot 
abide a scholer, and his chiefest delight is to keepe downe a Poet, 
as Mantuan testifieth in these verses . . . There is in Princes 
and great mens courts (saith he) a rude, enuious, and rusticke 
troupe of men, ieasters, flatterers, bauds, soothers, adulterers, plaiers, 
and scoffers, who hating all vertue find a thousand inuentions to 
driue Poets thence." Here we have the enemy of the scholar and 
poet described in terms that Jonson uses for Anaides. It is almost 
exactly the same character in the same situation. The words 
'Tiating all vertue," translated from Mantuan, apparently become 
the basis of a later sketch, in which Lodge analyzes more narrowly 
literary jealousy (pp. 55 ff.) : 

[Hate- Vertue] is a foule lubber, his tongue tipt with lying ... he 
is full of infamy & slander, insomuch as if he ease not his stomach in de- 
tracting somwhat or some man before noontide, he fals into a feuer that 
holds him while supper time: he is alwaies deuising of Epigrams or 
scoffes. . . . 

^Poetaster and Satiromastix, Belles-Lettres Series, introduction. The 
passage from Lodge on Hate-Vertue (Wits Miserie, pp. 55 ff.) is also 
quoted by Laing in his edition of Lodge's Defence of Poetry, etc., Shake- 
speare Society, 1853, pp. xliv, xlv, for its references to various writers. 



278 English Elemerits in Jonson's Early Comedy 

The mischiefe is that by graue demeanure, and newes bearing, hee hath 
got some credite with the greater sort, and manie fooles there bee that 
because h§e can pen prettilie, hold it Gospell what euer hee writes or 
speakes: his custome is to preferre a foole to credite, to despight a wise 
man, and no Poet Hues by him that hath not a flout of him. Let him 
spie a man of wit in a Tauerne, he is an arrant dronckard . . . Let a 
schoUer write, Tush (saith he) I like not these common fellowes: let him 
write well, he hath stollen it out of some note booke: let him translate, 
Tut, it is not of his owne: let him be named for preferment, he is insuffi- 
cient, because poore. 

Then follows an appeal to the great English writers to put aside 
all petty animosities and stand together for the honor of their 
calling. The decision of Anaidcs to claim that the work of Crites 
is stolen, the scorn of Hedon and Anaides that Crites is chosen to 
write the masque for Cynthia, and the contempt of the pair for 
the povert}' of Crites are anticipated by Lodge in this sketch.^ A 
few other details from Wits Miserie illustrate phases of Anaides. 
Blasphemy, who haunts ordinaries and "accounts it an impeach of 
his honour if any outsweare him" (p. 65), represents the profanity 
of Anaides, who will "blaspheme in his shirt," and whose oaths 
"at one supper would maintain a town of garrison in good swearing 
a twelve-month" (II, 1, p. 159). Again, "Immoderate and Dis- 
ORDiNATE lOY . . . incorporate in the bodie of a ieaster" with 
his intemperate laughter (p. 8'4) suggests the jester Anaides with 
his page Gelaia, or uncouth laughter. 

The pages, except Mercury and Cupid, are little more than names 
that help to characterize their masters. Morus had already been 
used as a name in Wager's llie Longer thou Livest. Prosaites 
sings a beggar's song (II, 1, p. 164), the greater part of which is 
omitted in the Folio. The omitted portion contains a doggerel 
list of humble trades and rogues' callings which suggests such 
works as The Fratcrniiye of Vacahondcs and the accompanying 
Quartern of Knaves, l^earer still to Jonson's list is that given in 
CocJce Lorelles hcte of the various classes of people who tlirong after 
Cock Lorel. In Wager's play, also, (11. 1704-1723) there is a 
series of doggerel rhymes forming an alphabet of rogues. Lyd- 
gate's Assernbly of Gods (H. 666 ff.) has a list not altogether dis- 

^The literary quarrels and jealovisies of the age and the sharp satire 
on pretenders are too common to follow out. Nashe has a good deal to 
say of literary jealousy, but his treatment is usually personal rather 
than eeneral like Lodge's. 



Cynthia's Revels 279 

similar to Jonson's.^ Cos, who follows the traveler, has several 
times been spoken of as a symbol of lying. The symbolic use of 
the whetstone in connection with a liar is frequent in literature of 
the time. Small {Stage-Quarrel, p. 50, n. 2) instances several 
examples. Gelaia is one of the most piquant figures in the play, 
but I know of no similar treatment in literature. Her slight 
resemblance to Pipenetta of Lyly's Midas has already been men- 
tioned (p. 240 supra). 

In regard to the four women of Cynthia's Revels I can add very 
little to what I have already said of them in the study of Jonson's 
allegory and of the groups in the mythological plays. Moria, the 
guardian, is apparently of middle age. She is garrulous, devoted 
to scandalous gossip, and prurient. The attention which Anaides 
pays her is of course allegorical. A passage dealing with her gos- 
sip and love of prying (IV, 1, p. 173) is in some points much like 
Donne^s description of a courtier's interests (Satire I). Certain 
traces of Moria as a type are to be found in the court of love 
poetry (p. 226 supra), but she shows most clearly perhaps a con- 
tinuation of the medieval treatment of old women. Certainly old 
women in the Middle Ages and the Eenaissance were not likely to 
be portrayed with sympathy. The ugliness of age was taken as 
symbolic of an evil nature, and an old woman was conceived as 
malignant or vicious, a conception illustrated in witchcraft. In the 
drama the nurse is the usual type, as in Romeo and Juliet, the 
old Timon, and Wily Beguiled. The nurse's garrulity, raciness of 
speech, and sensuality recur in Moria, and both show traces of the 
procuress of the novella. On the whole, however, Moria is a loftier 
figure than the vulgar types with which Jonson's treatment allies 
her. She is most distinct, perhaps, in her perversion of diction. 
Cupid (II, 1, p. 162) likens her to "one of your ignorant poetasters 
of the time, who, when they have got acquainted with a strange 
word, never rest till they have wrung it in, though it loosen the 
whole fabric of their sense." She is thus a forerunner of the 
precieuses. 

Argurion is so purely an allegorical figure that she is scarcely 
to be considered in any other light. Gilford long ago pointed out 
(II, 1, p. 162) the kinship of the chai-acter to the Plutus of Aris- 

^Cf. also Triggs's notes in the E. E. T. S. edition. 



280 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

tophanes with the blending of literal and metaphorical meanings 
in the characterization. Barnfield's portrait of Lady Pecimia also 
indicates the conventionality of Jonson's treatment. Lady Pecunia 
and Argurion are both loved and quickly neglected by young men, 
though constant love alone will win their faith. 

One immediately recognizes, on the other hand, that Philautia 
and Phantaste,. abstractions as they are, represent pretty well con- 
temporary ladies of fashion and position. Hints of them have 
already been pointed out in court of love poetry, in Lyly's 
plays, in Old Fortunaius, etc. Their manners and pastimes fill 
the stories and love poetry of the Renaissance. Philautia and 
Phantaste represent two types of courtliness in women, — Philautia, 
the hauteur, pride, and exclusiveness of birth and position ; Phan- 
taste, the fickleness, sportiveness, restless ingenuitv^ and fancy of 
idleness and fashion. It is useless to point out the conventionality 
of hauteur in the woman of Renaissance story. The court of love 
convention that humbled the lover in the presence of his lady em- 
phasized this quality of haughtiness in the delineation of the court 
lady. The name Philautia is met frequently. Philautus in 
Euphues, though a man, is of the same type, and earlier still the 
name is given to a character in Gascoigne's Glass of Government. 
In James IV (11. 1839 f.) there occurs the expression, "Such as 
giue themselues to Philautia as you do." Lodge's Catharos. 
Diogenes in his Singularitie contains two or three passages in 
which the term philautia is used. In one (Hunterian Club, 
p. 5) the idea is personified: "Damocles lately acquainted with 
Philautia in speaking hir faire spendeth hir much." In the sec- 
ond (p. 49) "the sinne of Philautia, that is to say selfe-loue" is 
discussed as the source of many evils, and the discussion suggests 
Jonson's conception of the Pountain of Self-Love. So Nashe in 
Pierce Penilesse (WorJcs, Vol. I, p. 220) mentions in his list of 
humours the "hatefull sinne of selfe-loue, which is so common 
amongst vs." Fenton, also, (Tragicall Discourses, Vol. II, p. 314) 
speaks of "the generall evill whiche the Grecians cal Philautia/' 
Thus the conception and the Greek name for it were commonplaces 
in English literature before Jonson's play.^ Phantaste represents 

^Cf. also Watson, Poems, ed. Arber, p. 7; Greene, Quip for an Upstart 
Courtier, Works, ed. Grosart, Vol. XI, p. 294; Stubbes, Anatomy of 
Abuses, ed. Furnivall, p. 29; Harington, Preface to Orlando Furioso 
(Smith, EUz. Crit. Essays, Vol. II, p. 2l8). 



Cynthia's Revels 281 

not only fancy and fickleness but light court wit in women. The 
questions asked in the old discussions of love often turned on the 
qualities of women, and one of the favorite qualities for discussion 
was wit. I have already several times referred to the prominence 
given to light wittiness in the delineation of the Eenaissance woman 
of the higher social type. 

The early part of Act IV is given to the characterization of the 
four nymphs as a group. In the Folio, all hut Argurion tell at 
length their supreme desires in a way that serves for self-charac- 
terization, but in the original form the scene was entirely one of 
small talk about lovers and dress. Phantaste proposes to run the 
gallants over, and then short sketches of them are given by the 
group of nymphs. This readily recalls the dramatic device of The 
Merchant of Venice (I, 2) where Portia characterizes her suitors. 
A similar device occurs in the Two Gentlemen of Verona (I, 2). 
In Love's Labour's Lost, also, (II, 1) the three ladies attending 
the Princess characterize briefly the three lords who have caught 
their fancy. 

Though Jonson's portrayal of the court women in Cynthia's 
Revels associates them most clearly with the court of love tradi- 
tion, the undercurrent in the portraiture connects the treatment 
with the satirists. Nashe in Pierce Penilesse (Vol. I, p. 216) 
makes a veiled attack on the prevalence of sensuality among court 
ladies. Among them, he says, there "be many falling starres, and 
but one true Diana." A more pessimistic picture is given earlier 
by Lyly in Euphues (Worls, ed. Bond, Vol. I, pp. 319 f.), and 
here, as in Cynthia's Revels and in the quotation from Nashe, the 
contrast between the queen and the women of her court is made. 
The passage reads : 

The Empresse keepeth hir estate royall and hir maydens will not leese 
an ynch of their honour, shee endeauoureth to settle downe good lawes 
and they to breake them, shee warneth them of excesse and they studye to 
exceede, she sayth that decent attire is good thoughe it be not costly, and 
they sweare vnlesse it bee deere it is not comely. She is heere accompted 
a slut that commeth not in hir silkes, and shee that hath not euerye 
fashion, hath no mans fauour. They that be most wanton are reputed 
most wise, and they that be the idlest liuers are deemed the finest louers. 
There is great quarrelling for beautie, but no question of honestie. 

The Empresse gyvieth ensample of vertue. and the Ladyes haue no 
leasure to followe hir . . . yet this I must adde that some there bee 



282 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

whiche for their vertue deserue prayse, but they are onely commended 
for theire beautie, for this thincke courtiers, that to be honest is a cer- 
teine kinde of countrey modestie, but to bee amiable the courtly curtesie. 

Cynthia's Revels closes with a palinode that gives a pretty com- 
plete list of the follies Jonson is attacking and shows how his pro- 
gram corresponds with that of Nashe and other satirists.^ 
Aruorplms and Phantaste in turn name follies and vices in 
groups, — afEected humours, fantastic humours, swaggering hu- 
mours, etc., — and the response is, "^'Good Mercury defend us." This 
use of the litany has already been mentioned in connection with 
the court of love elements in the play. The parody suggests the 
song at the close of Summer's Last Will and Testament with its 
refrain, "From winter, plague, & pestilence, good Lord, deliuer 
vs." Earlier in the same play there is a song with the refrain, 
"Lord, haue mercy on vs." A similar use of the litany is found 
later in Jonson's Gipsies Metamorphosed. A passage in Satire 
II of Guilpin's Skialetheia may be quoted as showing the conven- 
tionality of Jonson's lists also. Guilpin says : 

Not that I weigh the tributary due, 

Of cap and courtship complements, and new 

Antike salutes, I care not for th' embrace, 

The Spanish shrug, kiss'd-hand nor cheuerell face, 

God saue you sir, good sir, and such like phrases, 

Pronounc'd with lisping, and affected graces. 

The foolish courtiers and nymphs in Cynthia's Revels pray Mer- 
cury to defend them from "Spanish shrugs, French faces, smirks, 
irpes, and all aifected humours," and from "waving fans, coy 
glances, glicks, cringes, and all such simpering humours." 

If my conclusions in regard to Cynthia's Revels are correct, 
the play is the most important of Jonson's early comedies as an 
indication of the fundamental nature of his work. The strong 
tendency shown toward abstractions even in the type characters 
that must have been drawn from life and that had been treated in 
Jonson's preceding plays with slightly different si^gnificance indi- 
cates the student of philosophies and systems, the follower of books 
rather than the observer of life. Some of the conventions that 
Jonson apparently borrows from the court of love could hardly 

^Cf. p. 67 supra. 



Cynthia's Revels 283 

have been drawn from life, and much of the play that is actually 
true to the manners of the time is probably likewise indebted to 
literary treatments. At least the dramatic handling of the ma- 
terial owes much to specific English writers who had already 
treated the follies and fashions of the age. The whole play illus- 
trates a technical handling of details, a building of systems and 
correspondences, a vesting of abstractions with the likeness of men 
and women, which is artificial, and while presenting the illusion 
of life, yet does not show the creative imagination of an original 
genius. 



CHAPTEE IX 

POETASTER 

The last comedy of Jonson's formative period, and also the least 
significant as an indication of his intimate acquaintance with Eng- 
lish literature, is Poetaster. Indeed, the play is usually consid- 
ered triumphant evidence of his perfect classicism, the English ele- 
ment being rather generally discounted, for, presumably as a mat- 
ter of defence, Jonson seems to have taken the greatest care to 
clothe all his satire in classic garb. That he consciously enter- 
tained such an idea is clear from his representation of Envy as 
falling into despair upon finding that the scene of the play is laid 
at Rome. In fact, with Poetaster Jonson entered a period in 
which he borrowed the greater part of his material from classic 
sources, as in Sejanus, Volpone, and even The Silent Woman 
despite its English tone; and it is only with The Alchemist and 
Bartholomew Fair that a preponderant interest in English litera- 
ture reasserts itself. 

A discussion of Poetaster from the point of view of English in- 
fluence will of necessity be somewhat brief. First of all, much of 
the material of the play, being classic, has only a slight connection 
with the humour types, which in their inception and development 
were so strongly impregnated with English tradition. Second, the 
proportion of obvious personal satire in the part of the play recog- 
nized as English is so large that personal portraiture has undoubt- 
edly had its effect upon the characterization of the types continued 
from Jonson's earlier plays. Finall}^, so much study has been de- 
voted to Poetaster, especially in connection with the stage quarrel, 
that there is little one can hope to add even in the way of English 
parallels to the play. 

The classic sources for Poetaster have been studied by a number 
of scholars. They are best indicated, perhaps, in Small's Stage- 
Quarrel (pp. 95-27) and in Mallory's edition of the play (Yale 
Studies in English, pp. xxxff.). Mr. Mallory, who is the latest 
editor of the play, has discussed the subject of sources most fully 
and systematically, and, as his edition is easily accessible and is 
much more convenient for the purpose than Gilford's, in view of 
its line numbering, I shall merely refer the reader to his discus- 



Poetaster 285 

sion. It will be seen, upon estimate, that considerably less than 
half the play has so far been connected with classic material. 
This statement, however, hardly represents the truth of the mat- 
ter; for there is much in the treatment of the characters and in 
the details invented by Jonson that accords with Roman history or 
with the tradition in regard to the characters handled, and from 
his rich knowledge of Roman life Jonson has undoubtedly added a 
great deal that cannot be traced to direct sources. Moreover, the 
classic setting and the classic figures weaken decidedly the em- 
phasis on the study of English manners and types even in the 
many incidents and scenes which are more suggestive of English 
than of classic sources ; and the result is a tendency to break down 
the rigidity of the narrower humour idea. Indeed, Jonson's later 
satire and character study are in general less restricted in point 
of view than during this early period. The most interesting phase 
of Jonson's classicism in Poetaster is seen in his blending of Eng- 
lish and classic elements. The absorption is not a complete suc- 
cess, it must be said, for one constantly feels a certain discord as 
he becomes aware of allusions to London life and characters or 
of bitter attacks on contemporary playwrights and actors. There 
are also a number of lapses into savage wrath that are out of 
keeping with the urbanity of Horace, whom Jonson has chosen as 
his model in a presumably calm and judicial handling of his 
enemies. But, allowing for all this, we still acknowledge that he 
has done a masterly piece of work in making some of his English 
types harmonize with the classic figures from whom they take 
their names. 

In the more English portion of Poetaster, notwithstanding the 
classic atmosphere, there are many indications of the alignment of 
the play with the other comedies of Jonson's early period. Albius, 
Chloe, Tucca, and Histrio owe practically nothing to classic ma- 
terial, and a decided English flavor pervades the treatment of 
Crispinus and Demetrius, and of Horace as the representative of 
Jonson. A number of the types in Poetaster have been carried on 
from preceding plays, and especially in Chloe and Tucca Jonson 
has given us fresh studies in humour that show a marked advance 
over his preceding studies of very similar types. One of the most 
interesting advances in his program of character study lies in his 
satire on the typical professional man, the soldier, the lawyer, the 



286 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

player. The satire in Poetaster on bombastic style, also, shows a 
continuation of preceding tendencies. Closely related to this 
phase of the play is the rather elaborate expression of Jonson's 
theories of poetry, which are largely classic but are often influ- 
enced by English tradition. With this general view of the Eng- 
lish elements in Poetaster, we may pass on to a brief consideration 
of some English conventions embodied in the play and of a few 
characters that are continued from Jonson's earlier comedies. 

Jonson's strong tendency to use the induction of his plays for 
the double purpose of expounding his ideas and defending himself 
is continued in Poetaster, though here the induction is not much 
more elaborate than a prologue. In connection with Every Man 
out and Cynthia's Revels, I have already tried to show the relation 
of the induction as Jonson used it to the inductions of earlier 
plays (pp. 146 if. and 314 ff. supra) . The introduction of Envy as a 
hostile force, her failure to find anything in the play suited to her 
purpose of stirring up hostility, her final departure, and the pro- 
logue's defence of the author's confidence, carry on the critical aim 
of most of the older inductions, to defend the play against oppos- 
ing standards and modes. But the conflict between modes and 
types of the drama, or between ideals and standards of audience 
and dramatist, which was suggested in a broad, dignified or 
humorous fashion by many of the older prologues and inductions, 
is not felt in this induction of Poetaster so much as is a sort of 
personal animosity between author and audience or critics. Envy 
is, of course, an appropriate figure for this hostile attitude which 
the author is attempting to forestall. She naturally sets the tone 
of the attack on Horace, or Jonson, and the answer of the pro- 
logue shows the supposedly calmer mood of Jonson's defence. 

Jonson's use of Envy arises out of a convention that culminated 
in the school of satirists — that of defying envy or detraction. But, 
before the convention became closely associated with satire, it be- 
gan to fix itself in the general literature of the time. With the 
writers of the sixteenth century, envy often meant no more than 
spite, ill will, or hostility ; and, with a public to whom the concep- 
tion of the Seven Deadly Sins had descended as a part of man's 
moral legacy, envy and detraction were doubtless felt as rather 
real and vivid motives of action. The feeling that an author had 
to defend himself against malicious slander or misinterpretation 



Poetaster 287 

was largely, perhaps, an outgrowth of the many pamphleteering 
wars of the century, in which religious, political, or critical disagree- 
ment led to an exchange of billingsgate and an obscuring of argu- 
ment in personalities. Every writer felt that some critic was likely 
to attack him purely from personal malice or envy; and it became 
conventional to forestall these attacks by declaring in a dedication 
that they would come. In the Epistle Dedicatory of Vicary's- 
Anatomie of the Bodie of Man (E. E. T. S., p. 6) the envy that 
pursues even physicians' is mentioned. Stafford, in his Examina- 
tion, addressing Elizabeth, complains that envy and reprehension 
are usual. Dickenson (Arishas, ed. Grosart, pp. 76, 77) declares 
that ignorance and envy are hostile to poetry, as Jonson in Poetaster 
calls his detractors and those envious of him the "spawn of igno- 
rance." Reference to envy is made also in some prefatory lines of 
the play of Virtuous Octavia; and Grim, the Collier of Croyden 
opens with the shade of Dunstan declaring that envy, hostile to the 
virtuous, has brought him back to earth. Casual references to the 
envy that writers must accept as their portion are too numerous to 
catalogue. This contemporary feeling that no merit exempted a 
writer from attack, or rather that merit was certain to call forth the 
attack, finds expression in Lodge's notable sketch of Hate-Vertue, 
a form of Envy (Wits Miserie, pp. 55-57). "Doubtles," Lodge 
declares, "it will be as infamous a thing shortly, to present any 
book whatsoeuer learned to any Maecenas in England, as it is to 
be headsman in any free citie in Germanie." 

However true this remark may be to conditions in England at 
the end of the sixteenth century, with the quarrels between authors 
and the hostilities of critics, the attitude became a highly fashion- 
able pose. Men added to their works addresses to Envy, hurling 
defiance or assuming resolute indifference. P[roctor's] Triumph 
of Trueth, (Collier, Illustrations of Old English Literature) ends 
with "An Inuectiue against Enuie." With the satirists an ad- 
dress to Envy or Detraction is usual, as I have said.^ Lodge ex- 
plains the title of one of his works by saying, "I entitle my booke A 
fig for Momus, not in contempt of the learned, for I honor them 
. . . but in despight of the detractor, who hauing no learning to 
iudge, wanteth no libertie to reproue." So at the close of SJciale- 

^Cf. p. 155 supra for a discussion of this convention in connection with 
the part of Asper. 



288 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

theia Guilpin cries, "A Fico for the Criticke Spleene." Hall intro- 
duces his Virgidemiarum with a "Defiance to Env)^" in verse. Mars- 
ton's Scourge of Villainy opens with a poetic address in disdain 
of envA^ entitled "To Detraction / present my Poes3^" Micro- 
Cynicon, also, greets its readers with a verse "Defiance to Envy." 
The introduction of Envy in Poetaster and the author's scorn for 
her are thus in accord with contemporary modes of satire. So 
much Jonson borrowed, but the compact and vivid picture of Envy 
and the powerful denunciation in Jonson's induction are unlike 
anything that had gone before. There is a new note of strength 
here. 

For Jonson's concrete representation of the personified Envy on 
the stage, the figure of Envy in the induction and epilogue of 
Mucedorus is suggestive. In the older play, the contest between 
Envy and Comedy has no bearing on a personal quarrel between 
playwright and public, for Envy is represented m^erely as the op- 
ponent of whatever pleases — of comedy in this case. Like Ee- 
venge in The Spanish Tragedy or Megaera in Gismond of Salern, 
he is a spirit propitious to tragedy. He enters smeared with blood, 
and through spite threatens to turn the events to bloodshed and 
disaster.^ The snakes clinging around Envy in Jonson's play are a 
conventional accompaniment of the abstraction.^ Spenser's two 
pictures of Envy in The Faerie Queene (I, iv, 30 ff. and V, xii, 
29 ff.) are made vivid in the same manner. The male Envy 

did chaw 
Between his cankred teeth a venemous tode, 
That all the poison ran about his chaw; 



And in his bosome secretly there lay 
An hateful! Snake, . . . 



^In the Quarto of Mucedorus published in 1610 a new ending of the epi- 
logue is found, and in this the plan outlined by Envy for bringing Comedy 
into disrepute connects with the plot of Poetaster in two points. The 
lean cannibal of a poet battened on malice, who is to be whetted on to 
write a comedy full of abuse, is twin brother to the jester Demetrius, who 
by reason of his malice and his "overflowing rank" wit is employed to 
write a comedy abusing Horace; and Envy as informer, except for his 
service as trencher, suggests the part of ^Esop in Poetaster. 

=Tlie kindred Megtera of Gismond of Salem (Brandl, Quellen des loelt- 
lichen Dramas in England, p. 569) is represented on the stage accompa- 
nied by snakes. 



Poetaster 289 

And eke the verse of famous Poets witt 

He does backbite, and spightfull poison spues 

From leprous mouth on all that ever vrritt. 

Jonson's Envy entreats : 

Here, take my snakes among you, come and eat. 

And while the squeezed juice flows in your black jaws, 

Help me to damn the author. Spit it forth 

Upon his lines, and shew your rusty teeth 

At every word, or accent. 

The function of the prologue is to defend Jonson's frank asser- 
tion that Cynthia's Revels is good, and to justify confident but 
reasonable self-praise. In connection with the character of Crites 
I have already had occasion to refer to the tone of this prologue in 
Poetaster, and to cite what Aristotle and Castiglione say in de- 
fence of self-praise (pp. 261 ff. supra) ; Jonson may have been influ- 
enced by these two writers. The idea, however, was common in 
literature. Jonson repeats it in Virgil's defence of Horace (V, 1, 
p. 358). 

The plot of Poetaster gives very little indication of Jonson's 
English bent. There is more action, perhaps, than in the two pre- 
ceding plays, but most of the incidents are drawn from classic lit- 
erature. Some of the classic incidents and devices in the play had 
already been adapted by the skilful Latinists who had learned the 
principles of Eenaissance imitation, and Jonson may have been in- 
fluenced in some cases by the effectiveness of these adaptations. 
But, even in such cases, he has made his treatment conform closely 
to the classic model. Indeed, neither incidents of this type nor 
the few that are more independent of classic influence deserve 
elaborate discussion. Accordingly, the plot will be disregarded, 
and incidents of the play will be taken up in connection with the 
character for which they are inost significant. 

On the basis of classic influence the characters of Poetaster fall 
roughly into three classes. First, there are the purely classic fig- 
ures like Augustus, Maecenas, and Virgil, who, though only dimly 
characterized, are of value in giving a setting and tone of classic 
dignity to the play. Second, by far the largest group in Poetaster 
consists of historical Roman characters who have become Eliza- 
bethan in part by virtue either of their manners or of their identi- 
fication with the individuals engaged in the stage quarrel. Many 



290 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

of these characters are so slightly handled as types that we may 
dismiss them. Such are Gallus and Propertius, who show some 
characteristics of the Elizabethan gallant as portrayed in Cynthia's 
Revels. On the other hand, Ovid and his father, with an admix- 
ture of classic details, represent more clearly aspects of London 
life. Finally, there are pure Elizabethan types, like Chloe, who 
merely bear classic names. These classes of course shade into each 
other. For our discussion a more convenient division of the char- 
acters is on the basis of their relation to the plot. Acts I, II, and 
most of IV depict a group of dilettante poets and women of fashion, 
with the social underlings who gather about them. Part of Act 
III is given to some satire on players which really stands outside 
of the action of the play. Much of Act III and all of V is con- 
cerned with the intrigue against Horace. The chief connecting 
link between the parts of the play is Tucca, who is present in al- 
most all the important scenes from beginning to end. 

Ovid as a gallant is an important figure in the play, because, 
through his conflict with his father and his love for Julia, he sets 
the tone of the piece at the very opening and introduces the group 
of worldlings who are so prominent in the play. His relation to 
Julia suggests some aspects of gallantry as treated in Cynthia's 
Revels, but the classic element that enters into the treatment of 
the two- characters and into the events connected with them — as in 
the banquet, which is drawn from Homer — is so pervasive that a 
discussion of conventionality in the intrigue is scarcely safe. 
Ovid's farewell to Julia after his banishment and her imprison- 
ment (IV, 6) has been compared with a similar farewell between 
the lovers in Romeo and Juliet (Til, 5). The effort of Ovid 
Senior to force his son from the pursuit of poetry to the more 
profitable pursuit of law repeats a motive found in Every Man in, 
where the elder Knowell rebukes his son's absorption in "idle 
poetry." It has been conjectured that both plays reflect the step- 
father's disapproval of Jonson's tastes. There may well have been 
some one in Jonson's circle who felt this opposition to poetry, for 
it was a heritage from medieval asceticism handed down by the 
Puritan and the more serious Englishman in general. The char- 
acterization of Ovid as unconsciously reciting law in verse has a 
parallel in Haue with you to Sajfron-walden, where Harvey is re- 
ported as planning to turn the law into English hexameters 
{WorJcs of Nashe, Vol. Ill, p. 86). The attack on lawyers, the 



Poetaster 291 

bitterest passages of which were omitted from the Quarto, prob- 
ably, like the Apologetical Dialogue, at command, is mainly in- 
cidental to Ovid Senior's preference for law over poetry. Satire 
on the profession of law is abundant in the sixteenth century, as 
in Stubbes's Anatomy of Abuses (pp. 117, 118), Hake's Newes out 
of Powles Churchyarde, Donne's Satires (II), Hall's Virgide- 
miarum (II, 3), Marston's Scourge of Villainy (Satire VII, 11. 
81 if.), James IV (1. 2032), etc.; but the usual attack turned upon 
dishonesty and unscrupulousness,^ whereas Jonson stresses chiefly 
the ignorance, stupidity, and impudence of the lawyer. In Lenten 
Stuffe, there is a severe arraignment of "learned counsaile" 
(TT'or^s. Vol. Ill, pp. 214-216), who, Nashe says, "being com- 
pounded of nothing but vociferation and clamour, rage & fly out 
they care not howe against a mans life, his person, his parentage, 
twoo houres before they come to the poynt." After further satire 
on the way in which lawyers obscure issues in words, Nashe de- 
clares : "Latinelesse dolts, saturnine heauy headed blunderers, 
my inuectiue hath relation to, such as count al Artes puppet- 
playes, and pretty rattles to please children, in comparison of their 
confused barbarous lawe, which if it were set downe in any chris- 
tian language but the Getan tongue, it would neuer grieue a man 
to studie it." Interestingly Nashe concludes the matter with a 
statement that Ovid and Ariosto could not be persuaded by their 
parents to pursue the study of law. 

The gallants and ladies associated with Ovid are of slight value 
for this study. In Albius and Chloe, however, whose house is 
used as a rendezvous, we have another entertaining study of the 
citizen and wife. Albius is completely subordinated to Chloe, and 
their relations suggest immediately Deliro and Fallace of Every 
Man out. There is the same subserviency on the part of the hus- 
band and scorn on the part of the wife, whose desires are centered 
on the courtly. Chloe's pride in her servant Crispinus, the sheer- 
est pretender as a poet and courtier, recalls Fallace's admiration 
for the gilded Brisk. Both husbands accept the petulant con- 
tempt of the wives as a mark of their helpmeets' superiority. 
Albius, however, is not only dotard but slavey, and is the willing 
tool of his wife in her vulgar social ambitions. The citizen and 

^Jonson's phrase "chevril conscience" in connection with law is iised in 
the same way by the author of Histriomastix (V, 1. 29), as Mr. Mallory 
points out: "The cbeverell conscience of corrupted law." 



292 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

wife of Cynthia's Revels, briefly as they are introduced, furnish 
the germ for much of the treatment of Albius and Chloe. Mistress 
Downfall, delighted and unabashed, makes her way into the court 
and evidently accepts the efl'acement of her husband as a matter 
of course. AVeak compliance in a husband and social ambition 
and unscrupulousness in a wife, accompanied by excessive vulgar- 
ity, engaged Jonson's attention in Lady Politick Would-be and 
Mistress Otter of his next two comedies, Volpone and The Silent 
Woman. But the especially interesting feature of the similar 
studies in the three plays closing Jonson's early period of comedy 
is the satire on the city types that were pressing into the social 
life of the courtly, probably an echo of the social upheaval in 
England. 

In spite of all the contemporary satire on women's control of 
their husbands and on their craze for fine dress and luxurious life, 
I have not found in previous literary treatments any adequate 
preparation for Jonson's types with their definiteness and realism. 
The dramatic projection of the figure was apparently slow in com- 
ing. In a short paragraph of Pierce Penilesse {Worlds, Vol. I, p. 
173) Nashe succeeds in presenting very concretely the proud 
"Mistris Minx, a Marchants wife," but the figure is not just that 
of the city wife with ambitions for a gallant servant. Chloe's 
choice of marriage with a citizen on the ground that citizens make 
the most tractable and lavish husbands, adds another to the al- 
ready long list of parallels between Jonson's work -and the old 
Timon, a play which has so far proved perplexing in its relation 
to Jonson's early comedies. Chloe in one of her tirades to her 
husband declares (II, 1, p. 217) : "1 was a gentlewoman born, 
I; I lost all my friends to be a citizen's wife, because I heard, in- 
deed, they kept their wives as fine as ladies; and that we might 
rule our husbands like ladies, and do what we listed ; do you think 
I would have married you else?" Later in the same scene, when 
Chloe is mortified by the bearing of Albius in the presence of the 
court ladies, Cytheris assures her, "They all think you politic and 
witty; wise women choose not husbands for the eye, merit, or 
birth, but wealth and sovereignty." In Timon Callimela, being 
urged to marry the citizen's heir Gelasimus for his wealth, replies 
(II, 1) : 



Poetaster 293 

I'le subject my neck 
To noe mans yoake. Is this a cittizen? 

Phil. A wealthy one. 

Cal. I shall the better rule : 
The Avyfes of cittizens doe beare the sway, 
Whose very hands their husbands may not touch 
Without a bended knee, and thinck themselves 
Happie yf they obteyne but so much grace, 
Within theire armes to beare from place to place 
Their wyues fyne litle pretty foysting hounds; 
They doe adore theire wyues; what ere they say, 
They doe extoll ; what ere they doe, they prayse. 
Though they cornute them. Such a man gyue me!^ 

Though Callimela and Chloe by no means have corresponding 
parts in the two plays, Callimela, self-centered, unscrupulous, and 
vulgar in her sharp replies, is not unlike Jonson's city wife. In 
Jack Drum's Entertainment, again, (Act T, 11. 263 If.) a girl is 
advised that it is better for her to marry a rich fool in order to 
spend his money, enjoy other lovers, and have her own way, than 
to marry a wise man and be curbed. 

A word in passing seems necessary in regard to the literary 
significance of this frivolous group, with its amours ranging from 
the poet Ovid and the Emperor's daughter to the poetaster Cris- 
pinus and the citizen's wife. Such a group doubtless represents 
well enough social conditions in England, and it would be useless 

^This parallel is pointed out by Mr. Mallory in his edition of Poetaster, 
p. 159. Mr. Mallory, indeed, is in advance of Hart in recognizing the 
kinship between Timon and Poetaster. Fleay, however, {Biog. Chron. 
Eng. Drama, Vol. I, p. 369) had already noted the use of asses' ears to 
symbolize the folly of Lupus in Jonson's play and of Gelasimus in Timon 
(V, 3). There are a number of other parallels between the two plays. 
Hart, Works of Ben Jonson, Vol. I, p. xliv, compares the song which 
Horace is composing as he enters in III, 1, with a typical Elizabethan 
drinking song in Timon (I, 2). Hermogenes is introduced as a singer in 
Timon, but refuses to sing before the people on the ground that he is a 
noble (III, 5). Hermogenes appears in Poetaster, also, and cannot be 
induced to sing until his professional jealousy is aroused (II, 1). It may 
be mentioned, too, that Blatte, the nurse in Timon, enumerates among 
her former lovers Albius and Demetrius (II, 1 ) . The hostility of 
the servant Luscus to the flattering Tucca who attempts to prey upon 
Ovid Senior, and the side remarks of Luscus on the Captain's rascality 
(I, 1) suggest the open hostility of Laches to the sycophants who prey 
upon Timon (T, 1, and I, 5). Again, Timon twice releases debtors from 
their creditors (T, 2 and II, 4), as Tucca secures the release of Crispinus 
at the moment of his arrest (III, 1). Finally, Crispinus's application of 
the terms "paranomasie, or agnomination" to the fiffure he has just used 
(III, 1, p. 224) offers a slight parallel to Demeas's application of the 
rhetorical names for figures in Timon, II, 5 ; III, 1 ; etc. 



294 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

to attempt distinguishing in Jonson's treatment of flirtations, 
flippant chatter, interest in love poetry, etc. what may be due to 
English influence and what may have been drawn from classic love 
poetry as a background. The group not only continues Jonson's 
study of the courtly, with their fashions and their frivolities, but 
to my mind it has its significance for what Jonson believed to be 
the effect of fasliionable standards on the work of the literary 
man. Even gifted poets who like Ovid and Tibullus give them- 
selves up to the banalities of courtship and love poetry, frittering 
away time in such entertainments as the banquet of the gods and 
neglecting the wisdom which it is the essential purpose of poetry 
to teach, are justly doomed to meet finally their condemnation at 
the hands of the imperial figure who represents not only the best 
civil, social, and intellectual traditions of a people but also the 
truest patronage of poetry. But it is not alone the courtly, with 
their Eoman or their English-Italian stimulus to erotic poetry, who 
are drawn into the stream. The citizen's wife, catching the fever, 
longs for a poet, and Crispinus arises in answer to her desire. 
The influence of the erotic poets thus produces in the end the de- 
testable Poetaster. Nashe expresses exactly Jonson's critical atti- 
tude to the trivialities of Ovid's disciples in poetry when he de- 
clares in The Anatomie of Ahsurditie {Worl:s, Vol. I, p. 10) : 

When as lust is the tractate of so many leaues, and loue passions the 
lauish dispence of so much paper, I mvist needes sende such idle wits to 
shrift to the vicar of S. Fooles . . . Might Quids exile admonish such 
Idlebies to betake them to a new trade, the Presse should be farre better 
employed, Histories of antiquitie not half so much belyed. Minerals, 
stones, and herbes, should not haue such cogged natures and names 
ascribed to them without cause, Englishmen shoulde not be halfe so much 
Italinated as they are, finallie, loue would obtaine the name of lust, and 
vice no longer maske vnder the visard of vertue. 

With the ambition of Crispinus to be a poet and his determination 
to win recognition from Horace, the center of interest shifts from 
Ovid and his associates. Tucca has already been spoken of as the 
chief connecting link between the parts of the plot. He is con- 
spicuous in one meeting of the gallants at the home of All)ius, and 
in the banquet of the gods; he is the medium for the satire on 
players; lie is the patron of the Poetaster, and eggs on Crispinus 
and Demetrius in the conspiracy which proves their undoing. The 
name Tucca is found in the works of Horace. The character, how- 



Poetaster 395 

ever, is strikingly fresh and original, and is the most thoroughly 
English of the figures in Poetaster. Guilpin had already dealt 
with a Captain Tucca in the "Satyre Preludium'' of Shialetheia, 
as Small has pointed out {St(ig&-Quarrel, p. 26) : 

A third that falls more roundly to his worke, 
Meaning to moue her were she lewe or Tvirke, 
Writes perfect Cat and fidle, wantonly, 
Tickling her thoughts with masking bawdry: 
Which read to Captaine Tucca, he doth sweare, 
And scratch, and sweare, and scratch to heare 
His owne discourse discours'd: and hy the Lord 
It's passing good: oh good! at euery word 
When his Cock-sparrow thoughts to itch begin. 
He with a shrug swearest a most siceet sinne. 

Guilpin's sketch may have suggested the name Tucca to Jonson 
as suitable for his lascivious captain, who was to approve the poetry 
of Crispinus and emphasize the vulgarity of Chloe and the courtly 
group.^ Dekker, in the address "To the World" prefixed to Satiro- 
mastix, apparently identifies Tucca with a Captain Hannam. 
Dekker, however, was defending himself against the charge that 
in adopting Jonson's character he showed barrenness of invention, 
and he makes this statement as evidence that his use of Tucca was 
as original as Jonson's. No satisfactory conclusion as to how 
much truth lies in Dekker's claim seems possible, but it is not 
probable, I think, that Tucca has much of Captain Hannam in 
hiiTi. Men of the type — braggarts, cowards, irrepressible med- 
dlers, and buoyant blackguards — were perhaps not uncommon fig- 
ures in the age, but Jonson at most only gave his character touches 
from life, for the type was well known in the drama before Tucca 
was created, and nearly every trait that distinguishes the character 
can be accounted for as conventional. The Jonsonian Tucca car- 
ries on lines of treatment found in Juniper, Simon Eyre, Falstaff, 
and Bobadill ; in fact, he continues the traditions of a group of 
characters to the development of which Jonson himself contrib- 
uted much. 

Tucca is an interesting variation on the usual type of braggart 
soldier, however. In his association with gallants, in his pretence 
to bravery, and in the exposure which quickly overtakes him, he 

^The name Tucca is met a number of times in the Latin epigrams 
of Campion. 



296 English Elemenis in Jonson's Early Comedy 

carries on conventions alread)^ seen in Bobadill; but these aspects 
of the character liave less to do with our final impression of Tucca 
than the mental and moral traits that disting-uish him. He is keen 
in mentality, aggressively interested in whatever comes to hand, 
irrepressibly zealous in affairs not his own, and calculating in his 
effrontery. Penniless, an inferior socially, a coward, and a lecher, 
he is yet acti\^e enough mentally to win his way in a forbidding 
world, and meet all the needs of his nature. It is his ceaseless 
scheming, his grasping of every opportunity, his use of every man 
he meets for his own purpose, that marks Tucca's effort to gain 
for himself prominence. The most conspicuous aspect of his im- 
pudence lies in the rushing torrent of his talk, his bold skipping 
from one idea to another. It is by this rush of words and ideas 
and by his air of patronage that Tucca sweeps inferior men along 
and overwhelms them. Juniper's attitude to his fellow servants 
suggests this phase of Tucca, but the Captain is not a word-monger, 
a poser in speech. Instead of Juniper's words for mere sound, 
Tucca's abundance of high-sounding proper names and slang 
epithets, often obscene in suggestion, practically always has a defi- 
nite bearing. The active mind and the irrepressible zest of life 
that often make rapid talkers and ready leaders of men we find 
represented in Simon Eyre of The Shoemaker's Holiday, Murley 
of Sir John Oldcastle, and the Host of The Merry Wives of 
Windsor, but their vigorous and picturesque speech is character- 
istic of Elizabethan portrayals of the bourgeois leader. Simon 
Eyre and the Host of The Merry Wives of Windsor are suggestive 
of Tucca not so much in the vigor of their speech as in their fond- 
ness for proper names. Eyre and Tucca are also both given to a 
bluff but kindly use of opprobrious terms for women. 

Falstaff, in spite of his greater complexity, is more interesting 
for Tucca than are the citizen types just mentioned, not because 
both are soldiers who have enrolled ragged companies (III, 1, p. 
231), but because they are akin in mind and morals. They have 
the same lechery, the same restless mentality prostituted to the 
worst uses, the same power to turn all threatened reverses to profit 
by their effrontery, and the same pompous and fatherly dignity 
made ludicrous by their utter selfishness and moral degeneracy. 
They have also something of the same gift of language. The Chief 
Justice rebukes Falstaff by saying (77 Henry IV, II, 1), "It is not a 
confident brow, nor the thronff of words that come with such more 



Poetaster 297 

than impudent saiiciness from you, can thrust me from a level 
consideration." Of course, FalstafE's wit combats with the Prince, 
his love of theatrical poses, and his versatility in general render it 
difficult to compare him with Tucca, but, on the whole, it seems to 
me that in mental and moral contradictions they belong to the 
same type. 

One of the offices of Tucca is to serve as the means by which 
Jonson's satire on players and playwrights is bound to the action 
of Poetaster. Some of the most interesting passages in the play 
are to be found in Tucca's picture of stage abuses. That Jonson's 
characterization of Histrio and certain actors associated with him 
is a fierce bit of satire on some contemporary company I have no 
doubt. Jonson, indeed, admits in the Apologetical Dialogue that 
he has attacked some players, though he denies the other charges. 
An identification of the individuals is of little interest for our pur- 
pose, however. The scene between Tucca and Histrio (part of III, 
1) sets forth the misfortunes and the vices of the worst class of 
actors, and the Puritan's objections to the stage are turned specifi- 
cally against Histrio. The actor is prompt with his assurance that 
the plays of his company are generously spiced with ribaldry, and 
that "all the sinners in the suburbs come and applaud our action 
daily" (p. 232). Indirectly, also, Jonson makes even more seri- 
ous charges against the players for their unscrupulousness in busi- 
ness dealing, their licentiousness, etc. (p. 234). Lack of wit and 
love of rant in the commonplace actor are touched upon by Tucca 
in his sportive abuse of Histrio (p. 231), but the rodomontade of 
the pages develops very fully Jonson's satire on the rant of players 
and the bombast of their playwrights. The naive, inartistic, and 
excessively explanatory treatment of classic themes was especially 
burlesqued by Shakespeare and others in the early period of satire 
on stage evils, and, following this burlesque of weak classicism, a 
more extensive and formidable satire was developed against rant. 
The great advance made by Kyd and Marlowe in the effectiveness 
with which human emotions and passions were portrayed was ac- 
companied by an excess of effort that often resulted in much 
"sound and fury." The weakness of certain passages in The 
Spanish Tragedy and Tamburlaine was quickly recognized, and 
mockery of them became stereotyped. The passages which Jonson 
puts in the mouths of Tucca's pages as typical fustian have been 



298 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

studied by various students, and a number of them have been traced 
back to their sources.^ Several are taken from The Spanish Tragedy 
and The Battle of Alcazar, one from The Blind Beggar of Alexan- 
dria, one from Antonio and Mellida, etc. Some of the rant, also, is 
parallel lo that of Pistol in II Henry IV and The Merry Wives 
of Windsor; and it is an interesting fact that Pistol is a follovrer 
of Falstaff as the actor-pages of Poetaster are in the service of 
Tucca. 

A favorite method of introducing into the drama the conven- 
tional satire on lack of art in plays and players was to represent 
on the stage a company of actors who are worse than novices. The 
device is found in Midsummer Night's Dream and Love's Labour's 
Lost, and, in a more elaborate form, in Histriomastix. This last 
play, which is so perplexing in its relation to Jonson, demands a 
closer study. In the first place, Histriomastix represents satire 
on a company of professional players and their poet Posthaste, 
while Chrisoganus, the nobler type of poet, who is commonly iden- 
tified with Jonson, is set at naught by the players. The similarity 
of this to Jonson's satire on stage matters and to his portrayal 
of the poet Horace is obvious. What is supposedly Marston's- por- 
trait of Jonson in Chrisoganus agrees strikingly with Jonson's 
portrait of himself in Horace. In Histriomastix (II, 11. 63 if.) 
the retort made to Chrisoganus — 

How you traiislating-scholler? you can make 
A stabbing Satir, or an Epigram, 
And thinke you carry just Ramnusia's whippe, 
To lash the patient — 

gives us the principal charges brought against Horace (IV, 1, p. 
239 and V, 1, pp. 255, 257). Further, Chrisoganus's condemna- 
tion of popular taste (III, 11. 189 fp. and IV, 11. 132 ff.)2 advances 
the same points in regard to the commonplace poet's appeal to 
ignorance, the baseness of his ideals, his lack of originality, etc. 
that are the grounds for Horace's condemnation of poetasters. 
Besides these general resemblances, a number of minor parallels 
have been suggested by Fleay (Biog. Ghron. Eng. Drama, Vol. 
I, p. 368). The actors in Histriomastix are called "politician 

^The fullest and latest discussion of the sources will be found in the 
notes to Mallory's edition. 

^This last passage has already been cited, p. 165, for its similarity to a 
speech of Macilente. 



Poetaster 399 

plaj^ers" (I, 11. 128 and 146), and of their poet it is said that he 
should be employed in matters of state (II, 1. 130). In Poetaster, 
the player iEsop is called "your politician" (III, 1, p. 234 and 
V, 1, p. 253), while both ^sop and Histrio meddle in political 
affairs as informers. Again, Gulch, one of the picturesque epi- 
thets which Tucca applies to Histrio (III, 1, p. 231), is the name 
of one of the players in Histriomastix. One line from Histrio- 
mastix in regard to the players (II, 1. 251), 

Besides we that travel, with pumps full of graVell, 

is practically repeated by Tucca (III, 1, p. 231). In the matter 
of Imrlesque on plays, the subplay of "Troilus and Cressida" in 
Histriomastix follows the older vein of parody on classic themes, 
but the rehearsal scene in Act IV shows that the repertory in- 
cluded also 'Tiuffing parts." 

The rather striking resemblance between Histriomastix and 
Poetaster is not easy of interpretation. Jonson may merely have 
been strongly under the influence of a play with which he had 
every reason to be familiar. It may be, however, that he was 
consciously connecting the two plays, and that he wished to present 
in Horace of Poetaster his own version of the Chrisoganus who 
had apparently given him offence. On the other hand, both treat- 
ments of the poetaster and commonplace players in contrast with 
the scholarly and serious poet, who is driven to write satires on 
the abuses that spring up in an age of plenty, may be in large 
part independent reflections of the attention paid in contemporary 
literature to the ideal of the poet and to a critical creed which 
commended certain definite things in literature and condemned 
others just as definite. 

In connection with Jonson's treatment of the players, a word 
may be said in regard to his attack on informers. The unscrupu- 
lous attempt of Histrio to make something serious of even Ovid's 
pastimes, and the information of ^'Esop in regard to the treasonable- 
ness of Horace's poetry, though reflecting one phase of the Eoman 
life that Jonson was depicting, are not altogether due to classic in- 
fluence. Elizabethan references to the abuses of the informer 
are common. Cloth-breeches in Greene's Quip for an Upstart 
Courtier, for example, (WorJcs, ed. Grosart, Vol. XI, p. 257) in- 
veighs against the informer, whose bag contains "a hundred & od 
writtes," chiefly for people of whom he knows nothing except that 



300 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

they are wealth_y enough to pay for immunity from disturhance. 
In particular, there is much evidence that literary men, especially 
playwrights, not infrequently suffered at the hands of those who 
were overzealous in discovering treasonable or seditious matter. 
There occurs a passage in Lenten Stuff e (Works of NasTie, Vol. 
Ill, pp. 213-218) which seems worth quoting in part in connection 
with the satire on informers in Poetaster and especially with 
Lupus's interpretation of the emblem begun by Horace (V, 1, p. 
253) : 

For if but carelesly betwixt sleeping and waking I write I knowe not 
what against plebeian Publicans and sinners . . . and leaue some 
termes in suspence that my post-haste want of argent will not giue mee 
elbowe roome enough to explane or examine as I would, out steps me an 
infant squib of the Innes of Court . . . and he, to approue hymselfe 
an extrauagant statesman, catcheth hold of a rush, and absolutely con- 
cludetli, it is meant of the Emperour of Ruscia, and that it will vtterly 
marre the traffike into that country if all the Pamphlets bee not called 
in and suppressed, wherein that libelling word is mentioned. An other, 
if but a head or a tayle of any beast he boasts of in his crest or his 
scutcheon be reckoned vp by chaunce in a volume where a man hath iust 
occasion to reckon vp all beasts in armory, he strait engageth hymselfe 
. . . to thresh downe the hayry roofe of that brayne that so sedi- 
tiously mutined against hym, etc. 

Kashe then passes on to "a number of Gods fooles, that for their 
wealth might be deep wise men" (p. 214) : 

These, I say, out of some discourses of mine, which were a mingle 
mangle cum purre, and I knew not what to make of my selfe, haue fisht 
out such a deepe politique state meaning as if I had al the secrets of 
court or commonwealth at my fingers endes. Talke I of a beare, O, it is 
such a man that emblazons him in his armes, or of a woolfe, a fox, or a 
camelion, any lording whom they do not affect it is meant by. The great 
potentate, stirred vppe with those peruerse applications, not looking into 
the text it selfe, but the ridiculous comment, or if hee lookes into it, 
followes no other more charitable comment then that, straite thunders out 
his displeasure, & showres downe the whole tempest of his indignation 
vpon me, etc. 

The satire on lawyers already referred to (p. 291 supra) follows. 
Then Nashe tells a tale of how the herring wooed the proud Lady 
Turbut, and concludes (p. 218) : 

0, for a Legion of mice-eyed decipherers and calculaters vppon char- 
acters, now to augurate what I meane by this : the diuell, if it stood vpon 



Poetaster 301 

his saluation, cannot do it, much lesse petty diuels and cruell Rhada- 
mants vppon earth . . . men that haue no meanes to purchase credit 
with theyr Prince, but by putting him still in feare, and beating into his 
opinion that they are the onely preseruers of his life, in sitting vp night 
and day in sifting out treasons, when they are the most traytours them- 
selues, to his life, health, and quiet, in continual commacerating him with 
dread and terror, when but to gette a pension, or bring him in theyr debt, 
next to God, for vpholding his vital breath, it is neither so, nor so, but 
some foole, some drunken man, some madde man in an intoxicate humour 
hath vttered hee knewe not what, and they, beeing starued for intelli- 
gence or want of employment, take hold of it with tooth and nayle, and 
in spite of all the wayters, will violently breake into the kings chamber, 
and awake him at midnight to reueale it. 

Nashe's complaint that his talk of a bear, a wolf, a fox, or a 
chameleon is perversely applied is a specific reference to his alle- 
gory in Pierce Penilesse (Works, Vol. I, pp. 321 ff.), the riddle 
of which Gabriel Harvey had professed to read. In Poetaster the 
tribune Ll^p^^s, thrusting himself into the presence of Caesar, plays 
the part of interpreter. After declaring that Caesar is repre- 
sented in the figure of an eagle in Horace's device. Lupus finds 
that the bird is not an eagle but a vulture. 

Liip. A vulture! Ay, now, 'tis a vulture. abominable! monstrous! 
monstrous! Has not your vulture a beak? has it not legs, and talons, 
and wings, and feathers? 



Hor. A vulture and a wolf — 

Lup. A wolf! good: that's T; I am the wolf: my name's Lupus; I am 
meant by the wolf. On, on; a vulture and a wolf. 

Hor. Preying upon the carcass of an ass — 

Lup. An ass! good still: that's I too; I am the ass. You mean me 
by an ass.^ 

The frequent emphasis on the vice of the "decipherer" and the 
informer which is found in the works of both Nashe and Jonson,^ 
and particularly the similarity of certain phases of Poetaster to 
the satire on informers and lawyers in Lenten Stujfe may be of 
some significance. Lenten Stufe, Nashe tells us, grew out of 
his exile in consequence of the uproar following the produc- 
tion of The Isle of Bogs in 1597, so that his attitude to the 
mischief maker who could ferret some dark meaning out of any 

'This particular trick, however, of making an asinine character call 
himself an ass is frequent in the drama. Cf. Much Ado, IV, 2. 
^Cf. p. 154 supra and the dedication t^) Volpone. 



303 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

matter is perhaps natural. If the treatment of Lupus and ^sop 
in Poetaster has any meaning for Jonson personally, as I think 
probable, we may have here another echo of the trouble over The 
Isle of Dogs. The evidence seems to me pretty convincing^ that 
Jonson was the player-poet who was imprisoned in the fall of 1597 
for completing The Isle of Dogs begun by Nashe, and that Jon- 
son was referring to his part in this play when he declared in his 
famous letter to the Earl of Salisbury at the time of his trouble 
over Eastward Hoe: "1 protest to your honour, and call God to 
testimony, (since my first error, which, yet, is punished in me more 
with my shame than it was then with my bondage,) I have so 
attempered my style, that I have given no cause to any good man 
of grief ; and if to any ill, by touching at any general vice, it hath 
always been with a regard and sparing of particular persons." The 
admissions which Jonson makes to Salisbury hardly apply to any 
of his acknowledged work. Though he had trouble about Poet- 
aster and told Drummond that he was "called before the Councell 
for his Sejanus, and accused both of poperie and treason," there 
is no suggestion that he was imprisoned in either case, and so far 
from confessing a fault or feeling shame for the plays that have 
come down to us, Jonson (Strictly maintained his innocence of in- 
tentional offence. If it was indeed Jonson who carried on the 
work on TJie Isle of Dogs which Nashe had begun, the bitterness 
of both men toward those who were ready to turn any literary 
work into an allegory of contemporary politics must have arisen in 
part from a common source. 

It will be noticed that in the case of both Ovid's banquet and 
Horace's poetry, it is a player who carries the information to the 
meddling magistrate in Poetaster, and the possible implication is 
that Jonson had come in contact with spies among players and 
had suffered from the chicanery and sensation to which rival play- 
houses resorted in order to injure popular writers. If so, the ex- 
perience may again be connected with The Isle of Dogs. There 
is, at any rate, a passage in Satiromastkc (11. 1523 ff.) which refers 
to The Isle of Dogs and at least intimates that Jonson's satirical 
plays were an outgrowth of his failure as an actor and of his diffi- 
culties with player-folk. "And when," says Tucca in part, "the 

^Cf. Chambers, Mod. Lang. Rev., Vol. IV, pp. 410 f. and 511; and Mc- 
Kerrow, Works of Nashe, Vol. V, pp. 29-31. 



Poetaster 303 

Stagerites banisht thee into the lie of Dogs, thou turn'dst Bandog' 
(villanous Guy) & euer since bitest," etc. Indeed, it does not 
seem to me improbable that The Isle of Dogs is responsible for the 
beginning of the hostilities which finally had their outcome in the 
stage quarrel. Jonson's reference in the Apologetical Dialogue to 
having been provoked on every stage for three years vs^ould point 
to lampooning that grew out of his disgrace in connection with 
The Isle of Dogs late in 1597 as a beginning more nearly than tO' 
the appearance of the revised Histriomastix probably in 1599. 
Jonson told Drummond, it will be remembered, that the beginning 
of his quarrels with Marston was Marston's representing him on 
the stage. While the representation of Jonson as Chrisoganus is 
friendly, and while the satire on the players who cannot appreci- 
ate the gifts and the standards of Chrisoganus is apparently Mar- 
ston's attack on Jonson's enemies, Jonson would naturally resent 
being represented on the stage, even in a favorable way, if Histrio- 
mastix portrayed in burlesque the war that arose from the unfor- 
tunate affair of The Isle of Dogs, for which even in 1605 he ex- 
pressed shame. Thus Jonson, when he came to attack Marston as 
Crispinus, may intentionally have made the satire more biting by 
representing him (III, 1, p. 234) as the ideal poet for a troop of 
players of just the type that Marston had burlesqued. The whole 
matter, however, is highly problematical, and after all turns aside 
from the purpose of this study. 

The most significant satire in connection with the plot against 
Horace centers, of course, around Horace, Crispinus, and De- 
metrius. These three unquestionably represent in part Jonson, 
Marston, and Dekker. How personal the sketches are, we have 
no way of determining with any real certainty. In the Apolo- 
getical Dialogue Jonson declares that it is his practice to "spare 
the persons and to speak the vices," but to accept Jonson's satire 
in Poetaster as having "neither tooth nor gall" would undoubtedly 
be a mistake. On the other hand, it would be a greater mistake 
to judge him by our standards or by the verdict of his enemies. 
He was at least, I believe, unselfishly devoted to his art; and the 
principles of that art made personal portraiture altogether second- 
ary to symbolism. Even in Poetaster, I regard Jonson's figures as 
less individuals than types with personal touches added from time 
to time. This view of Jonson's method gains force from a com- 



304 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

parison of Poetaster with Satiromastix, where the satire is beyond 
any question primarily aimed at the peculiarities of the man Jon- 
son. Dekker, indeed, in his address to the World by way of 
preface to Satiromastix, tries to meet the criticism "that in 
vntrussing Horace, I did onely whip his fortunes, and condition of 
life, loherc the more noble Reprehension had bin of his mindes 
Deformitie." But Dekker, unlike Jonson, scarcely dared to plead 
literary standards as the basis of his attack. 

Outside of the arguments I have tried to bring forward in proof 
of the fact that in his portrayal of character Jonson was primarily 
a follower of Renaissance standards and ideals, the best proof 
that there is a large amount of conventionality in the treatment 
of Crispinus and Demetrius would be to show that in the similar 
pair of Every Man out and Cynthia's Revels there is no satire on 
Marston and Dekker. Though I am fully convinced, for my part, 
that no character of Every Man out represents either Marston or 
Dekker and that the satire on the two in Cynthia's Revels is inci- 
dental and decidedly secondary to the treatment of type figures, 
it is impossible to speak with certainty. Dekker, at any rate, 
{Satiromastix, 11. 420 fE.) saw fit to consider himself and Marston 
attacked in Anaides and Hedon, and even the planning of Satiro- 
mastix may have been in reply to Cynthia's Revels. It seems 
fairly probable, also, that in What You Will Marston replied to 
Cynthia's Revels before Poetaster and Satiromastix appeared on 
the stage (Small, Stage- Quarrel, pp. 101-107). But the problem 
of how far personal satire on Marston and Dekker determined the 
characterization of Hedon and Anaides is one that I cannot attack 
fully enough for my own purposes, and I shall have to content my- 
self with pointing out what appears to me most conventional In 
the figures of Horace, Crispinus, and Demetrius and in their re- 
lation to each other, and what suggests most strongly the treat- 
ment of types. 

Disregarding, then, the personal significance of these three char- 
acters, we can say with the utmost confidence that they represent 
literary types and that in their motives and ideals, their attitude 
and utterances, Jonson has embodied his critical judgments, cor- 
rect or incorrect. Though many of the conventional elements in 
the treatment of the three as literary types Jonson derived directly 
from Horace, there is an English influence discernible. Some 



Poetaster 305 

details of this literan' characterization, again, may also have been 
decidedly personal; for the treatment turns upon the classification 
of poets, and, as skilful portraiture would be more likely to sting 
than un]-ecognizable perversion, Jonson probably put Marston and 
Dekker where it was understood that they belonged. There is 
nevertheless a certain amount of literary symbolism involved in 
the relations of the trio. The hostility against Horace has its root 
in literary jealousy. Both Crispinus and Demetrius are declared 
envious and are accused of calumny and detraction. But Cris- 
pinus represents envy, I think, rather than detraction, and in 
slandering Horace merely follows Demetrius. His real folly is 
word-mongery. The same relation exists between Hedon and 
Anaides in Cynthia's Revels. Hedon is envious but not skilful in 
forging slander, and it is the inventive genius of Anaides that 
checks Hedon's plan for a direct attack on Crites and points out 
the way to wound him by the charge of plagiarism (III, 2). 
Crites and Horace also have the same attitude of indifference and 
superiority to the pair. The literary allegory is the same in the 
two plays, and, on this side at least, the personal hits are probably 
the same. 

When Demetrius is characterized separately, it is as the base 
jester whose vein is envious detraction (III, 1, p. 235 and V, 1, 
p. 258). His malice, his gift for slander, and his "overflowing 
rank wit"' commend him for the office of abusing Horace. He is 
of the company of those who will bite 

And gnaw their absent friends, not cure their fame; 

Catch at the loosest laughters, and affect 

To be thought jesters; such as can devise 

Things never seen, or heard, t'impair men's names, 

And gratify their credulous adversaries; 

Will carry tales, do basest offices, etc. 

While much of this passage is taken from one of Horace's satires 
(Book I, Sat. IV), Jonson probably adopted it because Eenais- 
sance thought in England had adopted the ideas. The Eenais- 
sance condemnation of the jester as discussed above (pp. 172 ff.) 
in connection with Carlo shows clearly the conventionality in the 
contemptuous verdict that Horace and his fellows pass upon 
Demetrius. Jonson treats the general type in Carlo, Anaides, and 
Demetrius. A base use of gifts of the mind is the foundation for 



306 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

the satire in all three cases, but the emphasis varies. Carlo is a 
social jester of a scurrilous and insulting type; he is a buffoon 
and a sycophant, putting his wit to unworthy uses for liis food. 
In Anaides jesting is only slightly treated; his perversion of wit 
takes the form of vulgar railing. Demetrius is merely a hireling 
poet who envies a better poet and is base enough to employ his wit 
in slandering him. The association of detraction with rude jest- 
ing, as in Carlo, is inevitable, and in the character of Demetrius 
detraction has been developed at the expense of purer jesting. 
The malice of Demetrius toward Horace as a literary man carries 
on, in a more concrete form, the spirit typified in Envy of the 
induction,^ and the discussion of literary enmities in that con- 
nection (pp. 286 f[. su'pra) illustrates the prevalence of the vice 
satirized in Demetrius and the conventional recognition of just such 
hostilities among literary men. 

Envy is the ground for the enmity of Crispinus- toward Horace, 
and the immediate occasion for his spite is the fact that Horace 
refuses him fellowship. But the real attack on Crispinus in the 
play is not for envy or detraction. He is the unworthy courtly 
poet, perverted in literary purposes. The satire on him in con- 
nection with the group of worldlings in Poetaster has already been 
indicated — his admiration for the shallowest of citizen wives and 
his pursuit of poetry in order to please a silly mistress. Kot even 
in Cynthia's Revels has Jonson rendered the "courtly maker" so 
contemptible. Though Hedon, like Crispinus, is the conventional 
lover, except for his envy of Crites and his association with 
Anaides, the character suggests Crispinus only as Anaides suggests 
Demetrius^ — in a thoroughly conventional role. On the other 
hand, in some traits that do not appear in the elegant courtier 
Hedon, Crispinus reverts to Jonson's earlier treatments of the 

^Demetrius is especially close to Hate-Vertue of Lodge's TFif.s Miserie. 

=His full name is Rufus Laberius Crispinus. The name Crispinus is 
used in Juvenal's first satire for a pampered, effeminate gallant, and 
while this character is rather dissimilar to Jonson's Crispinus, the use 
of the name in Juvenal for a gallant and in Horace for a shallow poet 
gives classic precedent for both phases of the characterization in Poetaster. 
Penniman, War of the Theatres, p. 110, has pointed out the fact that 
the name Laberius was associated with affected diction. 

^In opposition to the view that Hedon represents Marston in the sense 
that Crispinus does, it is interesting to note that while the exquisite 
Hedon resents the fact that Crites is allowed in the presence poorly clad 
(TIL 2, p. 166), Crispinus. whose shabbiness is several times hinted, is 
eager for the recognition of Horace. 



Poetaster 307 

gull. lEis facility in rhyming, his plagiarism, his eagerness to be 
received among the great, his veneer of fashionableness, and his 
real poverty associate him with Mathew. The absurd coat of arms 
of which he boasts recalls Sogliardo. 

In his encounter with Horace (III, 1), Crispinus characterizes 
himself as a literary man. He claims to be a scholar, a Stoic, 
a poet newly turned to the art, a satirist in Horace's vein, and a 
student of architecture. For the benefit of Horace, he sings a 
song of his mistress's cap, applying to a figure in it rhetorical terms 
of great pomposity. "Lewd solecisms, and M'-orded trash," Horace 
calls his discourse.^ Later (III, 1, p. 231) Tucca recommends 
Crispinus to Histrio as one who "pens high, lofty, in a new stalk- 
ing vein" for the stage. In the variety of these accomplishments 
there is doubtless a personal hit at the restless genius of Marston, 
who was not content with efforts in one line. But the real satire 
on Crispinus as a litterateur is focused on word-mongery. If ac- 
cording to Jonson's critical standards anything was more to be 
condemned than frivolous poetry, it was the stilted, affected, and 
crabbed vocabularies of the day. When Crispinus is tried for 
calumny, a poem by him filled with afi'ected and pompous terms is 
produced. On the strength of it, a purge is administered, Cris- 
pinus vomiting up the characteristic Marstonian vocabulary. The 
device is drawn from Lucian's Lexiphanes, but already attention 
has been called (p. 44 supra) to similar dramatizations in con- 
nection witli the Martinist controversy, which may have gained 
Jonson's attention and suggested the possibilities in the use of this 
stage device.- It was also pointed out at the same time that the 
idea of the vomit of inflated diction had been used by Nashe with 
reference to Plarvey. When sentence is finally passed on De- 
metrius and Crispinus, Demetrius, apparently considered hopeless, 
is condemned to wear the fool's coat and cap. Crispinus, how- 

^This dialogue between Crispinus and Horace, in which Crispinus pours 
forth praise of his own gifts, and Horace struggles vainly to escape, is 
based on the Latin Horace, Bk. I, Satire IX, the same order of incidents 
being followed by the two writers. Already in Deliro's futile attempts 
to escape Brisk {Ev. M. out, II, 2, p. 95) Jonson had suggested the theme. 
Donne in Satire IV imitates this scene from Horace, adapting the bore's 
talk very skilfully to suggest such phases of London follies as newsmon- 
gery and the boastfulness of travelers. In Wyt and Science, the fiend 
Tediousness overcomes Wit, but the symbolism is different from that of 
Poetaster. 

-In All for Money, out of a vomit certain evils are born on the stage. 



308 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

ever, is recognized as merely perverted, and a strict literary diet 
is prescribed. Virgil charges him in part (V, 1, p. 261) : 

You nuist not hunt for wild outlandish terms, 

To stuff out a peculiar dialect; 

But let your matter run before your words. 

And if at any time you chance to meet 

Some Gallo-Belgic phrase, you shall not straight 

Rack your poor verse to give it entertainment, 

But let it pass; and do not think yourself 

Much damnified, if you do leave it out, 

When nor your understanding, nor the sense 

Could well receive it. This fair abstinence, 

In time, will render you more sound and clear. 

The treatment of Crispinus as poetaster and word-monger rep- 
resents the cnlmi nation of the satire on perverted taste and dic- 
tion which Jonson had been developing for several years. Every 
type of uncouth diction he had already attacked in Juniper, Pun- 
tarvolo. Brisk, Amorphus, and others. In The Case is Altered 
(I, 1, p. 520) Valentine says of Juniper's phrases, "0 how piti- 
fully are these words forced ! as though they were pumpt out on's 
belly." In the Quarto of Every Man in, when Clement at the 
conclusion is passing judgment on Mathew and Bobadill, — a sit- 
uation suggestive in some details of the condemnation of Cris- 
pinus and Tucca, — the justice says (11. 2925 f.) in connection with 
degenerate taste in poetry, "But she must haue store of Ellehore,^ 
giuen her to purge these grosse obstructions." In Cynthia's 
Revels, again, there is a passage (II, 1, p. 162) applied to Moria 
which sounds as if it were taken from Virgil's charge to Cris- 
pinus : "She is like one of your ignorant poetasters of the time, 
who, when they have got acquainted with a strange word, never 
rest till they have wrung it in, though it loosen the whole fabric 
of their sense." Thus, while the treatment of Crispinus is an 
attack specifically on Marston and the Marstonian vocabulary, it 
expresses on Jonson's part a rage against perverted diction in gen- 
eral which had been waxing at least since the time of The Case is 
Altered. 

In Horace, the literary program of Every Man out and 

^The pills which are administered to Crispinus are "mixt with the 
whitest kind of hellebore." 



Poetaster 309 

Cynthia's Revels is repeated. He is the type of satirist whom 
Jon son was ready to defend. It can hardly be said that the au- 
thor bohlly portrays Horace-Jonson as the ideal, though the im- 
plication is unquestionable. As I have already urged, the por- 
traits of Asper and Crites seem to me less personal than that of 
Horace — not intended primarily for Jouson himself. The simi- 
larity of Horace to Asper-Macilente and Crites lies chiefly in the 
similar charges brought against the three as satirists, and the dis- 
cussion in the preceding chapters of these characters from Every 
Man out and Cyntliia's Revels serves to indicate how far Jonson in 
treating Horace was glancing at Eenaissance and classic ideals of 
character. One of the chief charges brought against Horace is 
that of railing (V, 1, p. 255). Indeed, under cover of the 
character of Horace Jonson seems to have felt it necessary to meet 
the very charges which had been made against Demetrius in the 
degrading classification of him as a jester. The same satire of 
the Latin Horace (Book I, Satire IV) from which is drawn the 
chief passage condemning Demetrius for malice, slander, and the 
vices of the jester (V, 1, p. 258) furnished Tucca's characteriza- 
tion of Horace (IV, 1, p. 239) : 

A sharp thorny-toothed satirical rascal, fly him; he carries hay in his 
horn; he will sooner lose his best friend than his least jest. What he 
once drops upon paper against a man, lives eternally to upbraid him in 
the mouth of every slave, tankard-bearer, or water-man; not a bawd, or 
a boy that comes from the bakehouse, but shall point at him : 'tis all dog 
and scorpion ; he carries poison in his teeth, and a sting in his tail. 

The similarity of this to Drummond's judgment on Jonson, which 
has already been quoted (p. 174), suggests that there was a meas- 
ure of truth in Tucca's condemnation. Dekker in Satiromastix 
strikes very effectively at the sharpness of Horace's vein when Sir 
Vaughan administers to him the oath (11. 2637 if.) : 

In brieflynes, when you Sup in Tauernes, amongst your betters, you 
shall sweare not to dippe your Manners in too much sawce, nor at Table 
to fling Epigrams, Embleames, or Play-speeches about you (lyke Hayle- 
stones) to keepe you out of the terrible daunger of the Shot, vpon payne 
to sit at the vpper ende of the Table, a'th left hand of Carlo Buffon. 

The charges which Jonson's Tucca makes against Horace are much 
the same as those which Carlo and Anaides make against Maci- 



310 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

lente and Crites/ and were doubtless intended to show the whole- 
some fear in which the base hold the satirist's whip. 

But Jonson is careful that Horace shall be viewed through other 
eyes than those of his victims. A^irgil, the supreme poet, gives the 
picture of the true satirist, and distinguishes between the two 
standards in satire (V, 1, p. 254) : 

Tis not the wholesome sharp morality, 

Or modest anger of a satiric spirit, 

That hurts or wounds the body of the state; 

But the sinister application 

Of the malicious, ignorant, and base 

Interpreter; who will distort, and strain 

The general scope and purpose of an author 

To his particular and private spleen. 

It is Virgil, again, who defends Horace against the further charge 
of self-love and arrogance (V, 1, p. 258). The ground of the de- 
fence is that perfect merit and high ideals are inconsistent with 
humility and justify self-praise. This view is strongly expressed 
in the prologue of Poetaster, and connects readily with classic and 
Eenaissance theory.^ 

An interesting part of the critical material in Poetaster is that 
dealing with the treatment of Virgil as the ideal poet (V, 1, pp. 
249 if.). All that represents for Jonson the spirit of humanism, 
the newly arising art, and especially purity of diction, is made to 
meet in the characterization of Virgil. Not only is he set in con- 
trast with Crispinus, the shallow dandy who affects poets and 
poetry, but he is even placed on an eminence above Horace, who 
is hampered by being the object of envy and malice. The charac- 
terization, I take it, is that of the Latin poet, but modified to 
accord with Renaissance ideals as interpreted by Jonson; and the 
character, in my opinion, is not to be identified with any of Jon- 
son's contemporaries, assuredly not with Shakespeare. At the 
time when Poetaster was written, Jonson's adherence to a rather 

^Cf. Ev. M. out, I, 1, p. 76 and IV, 4, p. 115, and Ci/nthia's Revels, 
III, 2, p. 166. The verdict of Demetrius on Horace (IV, 1, p. 239), "He 
is a mere sponge; nothing but Humours and observation; he goes up and 
down sucking from every society, and when he comes home squeezes him- 
self dry again," recalls Carlo's remark (V, 4, p. 130), "Now is that lean, 
bald-rijj Macilente, that salt villain, plotting some mischievous device, 
and lies a soaking in their frothy humours like a dry crust, till he has 
drunk 'em all up." 

-Cf. pp. 261 flf. supra for illustrative passages from Aristotle and 
Castiglione. 



Poetaster 311 

formal classic art and his tendency to follow models and prin- 
ciples were perhaps stronger than at any other period of his life; 
and Shakespeare's art was certainly not of a type to arouse Jon- 
son's ardor. If Jonson did have any contemporary in mind, it 
was Chapman, I should say. The two men differ in many of 
their theories, but Jonson must have recognized Chapman as the 
most notable and influential exponent of a scholarly and classical 
art. In the introduction to his edition of Poetaster (pp. 
Ixxxixff.) Mr. Mallory has given an excellent argument against 
the identity of Virgil with Shakespeare, but to my mind he under- 
estimates the respect that Jonson probably felt for Chapman in 
spite of their divergences.^ 

There is a vast amount of critical material scattered throughout 
Poetaster and distributed to many characters. Some of the most 
eloquent passages in the play exalt true poetry. In I, 1 (p. 215), 
Ovid praises "sacred Poesy" and contrasts with the "jaded wits" 
of hirelings the "high raptures of a happy muse." In V, 1 (p. 
248), Caesar pays tribute to poetry that is "true-born, and nursed 
with all the sciences." Soon after comes the magnificent charac- 
terization of Virgil as a poet — his art, his reflection of life, his 
creation of beauty. These lyric passages belong with the fine 
lines in the Quarto of Every Man in (11. 2889 ff.) in which Jonson 
exalts poetry nourished with "sacred inuention" and "sweete phi- 
losophic" and clothed in the "maiestie of arte." In these passages 
Jonson has repeated and varied a simple text with great feeling 
and great freshness. Especially has he stressed with ardent zeal 
the sacredness of the poet's calling.- Throughout Poetaster there 
is also fierce emphasis on the need of learning in a poet. Horace 
(V, 1, p. 249) makes ignorance the soil in which envy and detrac- 
tion take root in the poet's mind. The deep reproach which 
ignorance carried with it in the eyes of the humanist is illustrated 
in the early humanist allegories Four Elements and Wyt and 
Science, where Ignorance is the fool.^ Among the Renaissance 
writers who decry ignorance in the poet and the resulting baseness 

^Cf. pp. 312-314 infra for the similarity of their critical utterances. 

-For various English expressions of poetic ideals, especially in regard to 
the high moral mission of poetry, see Smith's Eliz. Grit. Essays, Vol. I, 
pp. xxi ff. Cf. also Works of Nashe, Vol. 1, pp. 25 f. In Timher Jonson 
has given a fuller discussion of poetic principles than in Poetaster, but 
it is more largely from a critical than from a moral point of view. 

^See also p. 208 supra. 



312 English Elem^ents in Jonson's Early Comedij 

of ideals, Nashe is conspicuous, especially in The Anatomie of 
Ahsurditie. There is in Poetaster, also, a representation of true 
poetry as unappreciated except by the elect, but the idea is not so 
prominent with Jonson as with other Eenaissance writers, for 
example with Nashe in the opening of Pierce Penilesse and Lodge 
in Eclogue III of A Fig for Morrnis, which is a melancholy com- 
plaint of the failure of true poetry through the scorn of the ig- 
norant, the greed of the great, and the decline of patronage. 
Epistle V of A Fig for Momus, again, with its picture of the lofty 
aims of the true poet and the base use of gifts in the poetaster, 
echoes the spirit of Jonson's play. 

Alas for them that by scurrilitie, 
Would purchase fame and immortalitie: 
But know this friend, true excellence depends, 
On numbers aim'd to good, and happie ends : 
What els hath wanton poetrie enioy'd 
But this? Alas thy wit was ill imploy'd. 
What reason mou'd the golden Augustine, 
To name our poetrie, vaine errors wine? 



Nought but the misimployment of our guifts, 
Ordain'd for arts, but spent in shameles shifts, 

So poetrie restrained in errors bounds. 

With poisoned words, & sinful sweetnes wounds. 

But clothing vertue, and adorning it, 

Wit shines in vertue, vertue shines in wit: 

True science suted in well couched rimes, 

Is nourished for fame in after times. 

Not only for idea but for the recurrence of several words the last 
two lines may be compared with Caesar's tribute to poetry (V, 1, 
p. 2-18) : 

If she be 

True-born, and nursed with all the sciences, 

She can so mould Rome, and her monuments. 

Within the liquid marble of her lines, 

That they shall stand fresh and miraculous. 

Even when they mix with innovating dust. 

The community of critical ideas between Jonson and his con- 
temporaries may be illustrated by the utterances of Chapman. 
Parallels between the early work of the two men — in the treat- 
ment of the gulls and the humour types, for example — are numer- 
ous enough to suggest very similar tastes and ideals, and, as I 



Poetaster 313 

think, an indebtedness on Jonson's part. In some very funda- 
mental points of the author's attitude to his art, also, Chapman 
almost seems to have been Jonson's mentor. The conception of 
poetry as elevated by labor and studious learning to a degree of no- 
bility or sacredness and placed above the reach of the vulgar mind, 
is expressed by Chapman in his addresses to Eoydon prefixed to The 
Shadow of Night and Ovid's Banquet of Sense and in the poetic 
epistle to Harriots appended to Achilles' Shield. It was just this 
attitude on Jonson's part which brought about his continual con- 
flict with the populace and popular writers. In the preface to 
Ovid's Banquet of Sense Chapman declares, "The profane multi- 
tude I hate, and only consecrate my strange poems to those search- 
ing spirits, whom learning hath made noble, and nobility sacred." 
Among Jonson's many avowals that his appeal is only to the elect, 
it Avill be sufficient to point out a passage near the end of the 
Quarto of Every Man out, in which occur the lines — 

The Gates that you haue tasted were not season'd 
For euery vulgar Pallat/ but prepar'd 
To banket pure and apprehensiue eares. 

Though actual parallels between the critical expressions of the 
two men would be difficult to point out, a comparison of the close 
of Chapman's epistle introducing The Shadow of Night with a 
passage near the close of the Apologetical Dialogue will illustrate 
the relation. Chapman, after declaring that the "high-deserving 
virtues" of certain noblemen may cause him "hereafter strike that 
fire out of darkness, which the brightest Day shall envy for 
beauty," concludes with the expression, "Preferring thy allowance 
in this poor and strange trifle, to the passport of a whole City of 
others, I rest as resolute as Seneca, satisfying myself if but a few, 
if one, or if none like it." In the Apologetical Dialogue Jonson 
declares his intention of turning to tragedy, 

Where, if I prove the pleasure but of one, 

So he judicious be, he shall be alone 

A theatre unto me. Once I'll say 

To strike the ear of time in those fresh strains. 

As shall, beside the cunning of their ground, 
Give cause to some of wonder, some despite, 

And more despair, to imitate their sound. 

^Chapman uses the expression "vulgar palates" near the end of the 
epistle to Harriots. 



314 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

Finally, the tenet that lies back of Jonson's attack on Crispinus 
and other word-mongers is succinctly expressed in Chapman's ver- 
dict, "Obscurity in affection of words and indigested conceits, is 
pedantical and childish" (Epistle prefixed to Ovid's Banquet of 
Sense). 

In a great number of minute points in which Jonson's defence 
of his art echoes the Eenaissance treatment of narrow and specific 
problems. Poetaster is most closely allied with the work of Nashe, 
who is akin to Jonson in genius and experience. This com- 
munity of experience between Jonson and Nashe — and a num- 
ber of other Eenaissance writers, indeed — may account for many 
of the detailed parallels between them in the defence of their work, 
though no little of the similarity must be due to the Renaissance 
practice of recognizing a formula for everything. I shall merely 
cite one passage from Nashe as illustrative of the relation between 
his work and Jonson's. In Pierce Penilesse {Works, Vol. I, p. 
154), after crying out against "this moralizing age, wherein euery 
one seeks to shew himselfe a Polititian by mis-interpreting," 
ISTashe protests : 

The Antiquaries are offended without cause, thinking I goe about to 
detract from that excellent profession, when (God is my witnesse) I 
reuerence it as much as any of them all, and had no manner of allusion 
to them that stumble at it. I hope they wil giue me leaue to think there 
be fooles of that Art as well as of al other; but to say I vtterly condemne 
it as an vnfruitfull studie or seeme to despise the excellent qualified 
partes of it, is a most false and iniurious surmise. There is nothing that 
if a man list he may not wrest or peruert. 

The use of "politician" here may be compared with Jonson's use 
of the politician player as one who finds some damning signifi- 
cance in the most innocent afFair. The antiquaries of Pierce 
Penilesse correspond to the professions of law and arms which 
Jonson attempts to conciliate in the Apologetical Dialogue. Of 
law and the ministers of the law, Jonson says, in phraseology 
similar to ISTashe's, "I reverence both"; and of soldiers, "I love 
your great profession." Both writers pay a tribute to the worth 
of the offended professions.^ Reference has already been made 
(p. 154 supra) to Jonson's complaint in Every Man out (II, 2, 
p. 96) against those who come to the theatre "only to pervert ahd 

^Nashe, Works, Vol. Ill, p. 215, also pays a tribute to lawyers, some 
of whom he attacks in the manner of Jonson. 



Poetaster 315 

poison the sense of what they hear." Compare Nashe's, "There is 
nothing that if a man list he may not wrest or peruert."^ Finally, 
immediately following this quotation from Pierce Penilesse Nashe 
holds over misinterpreters the threat that his satire has power to 
make them smart, as Jonson in the Apologetical Dialogue boasts 
of his ability to 

write Iambics, 
Should make the desperate lashers hang themselves. 

These are very minor points indeed, but such correspondences 
are rather telling when they increase to large numbers. 

The literary life of Elizabethan England as Jonson lived it can 
never be reconstructed with entire truth ; for it is a difficult thing 
at best to revivify the genius of a past age even in regard to let- 
ters. Much of the literature of the time is lost, and much of 
what remains I have not been able to compass for this study. Still 
there are many traces of Jonson's sympathy with the English lit- 
erature which came to his hand, and those cited are, I hope, rep- 
resentative enough and full enough to indicate the temper of the 
man. If I have interpreted them truly, we have not always seen 
Jonson from the right point of view. The powerful influence of 
his classical training and sympathies is clear, and on it the great- 
ness of his literary art depends. But in two respects we need to 
regard Jonson's work in a new light. First, a sufficient number 
of parallels have been traced here to suggest that Jonson is rarely 
altogether original in ideas. In the petty details expressing an 
attitude to audiences which I have instanced as repeating Nashe 
and other writers, I may seem to be overstressing Jonson's ac- 
cord with contemporary literature; but there is so much of just 
such minor parallelism to be found in his work that one inevitably 
comes to regard him as almost absolutely dependent upon tradi- 
tion and precedent, upon the conservative attitude of his fellows. 
Wherever he looks, a precedent, a rule, a well defined attitude at- 
tracts him and seems sane and judicial. Second, the most inter- 
esting phase of Jonson's English prejudice is seen in the moral 
symbolism that underlies his treatment of characters and even of 
incidents; his vein is only more artistic and subtle but not less 
purposeful than that of allegory. This bent in Jonson is evident 
in his choice of material from English literature, where the moral 

^Cf. also Works, Vol. I, p. 260, and Vol. Ill, p. 235. 



31G English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy 

and the symbolic are so tenacious. Tlie unusual originality of the 
man considering his age lies in his creation of classic form to suit 
his ideas, in the fresh combination of all the details that he uses, 
and in his mastery of dramatic construction and rhetorical excel- 
lence. Herein consists the supreme power out of which grew his 
influence. 



INDEX 



Acolastus, 267 n. 2. 

Acteon and Diana, etc., 39 n. 2. 

Adventures of Master F. I., 207, 

221, 275. 
.^neas Sylvius, 122. 
Affectionate Shepherd, 232 n. 3. 
Alarum against Usurers, 140, 141 

n. 3. 
Albion Knight. 251. 
Alchemist, 5, 12 n. 2, 13, 204 n. 2, 

284. 
Alcida: Greenes Metamorphosis, 62. 
Alden, R. M., 17 n. 1, 18 n. 1, 204 

n. 1. 
All Fools, 132 n. 2. 
All for Money, 307 n. 2. 
All's Well that Ends Well, 185. 
Amorphus, 264-268, etc. 
Anaides, 276-278, 306, etc. 
Anatomic of the Bodie of Man, 287. 
Anatomic of Absurditie, 42 n. 2, 

205, 294, 312. 
"Anatomy" in titles, 42 n. 2. 
Anatomy of Abuses, Part I, 42 n. 

2, 86 n. 1, 101, 141 n. 1, 142 n. 2, 

167, 203, 280 n. 1, 291. 
Anatomy of Abuses, Part II, 204. 
Anders, H., 11. 

Andreas Capellanus, 219 n. 1. 
Anecdotes of Early English His- 
tory, 38. 
Anstoer to J. MartialVs Treatise of 

the Cross, 39. 
Antonio and Mellida, 11 n. 1, 22 

n. 1, 164, 186 n. 1, 196 n. 1, 215 

n. 1, 298. 
Appius and Virginia, 41. 
Arber, E., 127-128. 
Arcadia, 8, 19, 82, 207, 246. 
Arisbas, 68, 287. 
Aristophanes, 29, 279. 



Aristotle, 5, 18, 22 n. 1, 28, 40, 69 
n. 1, 170 n. 3, on jesting 172, 
173 n. 1, 174, ethical conceptions 
significant for Cynthia's Revels 
246-249, the highminded man 261- 
262, 289. 310 n. 2. 

Arraignment of Paris, 72 n. 1, 236- 
237. 

Arte of Flatterie, 28, 70, 181. 

Arte of Rhetorique, 6 n. 1, 56-57, 
88 n. 1, 98, 147 n. 3, 172-173, 
198 n. 1. 

Ascham, on imitation 6 n. 2 and 
7 n. 1, 23, 56, 172. 

Asotus, 267 n. 2. 

Asotus, 267-272, etc. 

Asper, 149-157, etc. 

Assembly of Gods, 278. 

As You Like It, 164, 233. 

Aubrey, John, 174. 

Aulularia, 92, 93, 100, 103, 204. 

Babees Book, 142 n. 1. 
Babington, Gervase, 141 n. 1. 
Bacchides, 206 n. 1. 
Bandello, 46, 50, 52 n. 1, 55, 66 

n. 1. 
Bang, W., 202, 205 n. 1. 
Barnes, Barnabe, 191. 
Barnfield, Richard, 232 n. 3, 245, 

280. 
Bartholomeio Fair, 5, 12, 13-15, 31, 

44, 77, 100, 134, 139, 154 n. 1, 

181 n. 1, 284. 
Bartlett's Concordance, 74. 
Bashful Lover, 105 n. 1. 
Bastard, Thomas, 144. 
Battle of Alcazar, 298. 
Batynge of Dyogens, 162 n. 1. 
Beaumont and Fletcher, 148, 154 

n. 1. 



318 



Index 



Belfagor, 15. 

Belleforest, use of humour 46-50, 

52 n. 2, 55 n. 1. 
Belvedere, 91. 
Ben Jonson's Wirkurig, 59 n. 1, 

207. 

Biographical Chronicle of the Eng- 
lish Drama, 11 n. 1, 74, 76 n. 1 
and 3, 78, 84 n. 1, 233 n. 2, 275, 
298. 

Birth of Merlin, 132 n. 2. 

Black Book of the Admiralty, 200. 

Blacke Bookes Messenger, 134. 

Blind Beggar of Alexandria, 74, 
126, 298. 

Blind Beggar of Bednal Green, 13, 
134. 

Blurt, Master Constable, 76, 132 

n. 2. 
Boccaccio, 13, 223. 
Bodenham, John, 91. 
Bond, R. W., 73, 236 n. 2, 239 n. 1. 
Boorde, Andrew, 42. 
Breton, Nicholas, 11 n. 1, 17, 68, 

141 n. 3, 245, 258, 276. 
Brief Lives, 174. 
Briefe and true report of the new 

found land of Virginia, 128. 
Brisk, 185-194, 273, etc. 
Brotanek, R., 12 n. 3, 221 n. 2, 235 

n. 1 and 4. 
Broughton, Hugh, 204 n. 2. 
Bruno, Giordano, 13. 
Buchler, J., 6 n. 1. 
Bullein, William, 42, 70, 86 n. 1, 

130 n. 1, 209, 265. 
Bullen, A. H.. 196 n. 1. 

Calendar of State Papers, 174. 
Calfhill, James, 39. 
Cambises, 86 n. 1, 236. 
Cambridge History Eng. Lit., 33 

n. 1, 42 n. 1, 121, 144 n. 1, 162 

n. 1, 276. 
Campaspe, 162 n. 1, 163. 
Campion, 144, 295 n. 1. 



Candelaio, II, 13. 

Captain Stukeley, 76 n. 2, 206. 

Captivi, 92. 

Carde of Fancie, 141 n. 3. 

Carlo Buffone, 61, 170-180, 277, 
306, etc. 

Casaubon, Isaac, 71. 

Case is Altered, 90-106, etc. 

Casina, 103. 

Castiglione, 19, 22, 142, 173, 195, 
197 n. 1, 202, 205 n. 1, 221, 231, 
260, on self-praise 263, 289, 310 
n. 2. 

Castle of Health, 42. 

Castle of Perseverance, 171. 

Catiline, 206 n. 1. 

Cato, 142. 

Caueat for Common Cursetors, 69, 
133. 

Certain Notes of Instruction, 88. 

"Challenges to a Tourney," 199, 
200. 

Chambers, E. K., 302 n. 1. 

Chapman, 1, 19, 29, 37, 67, comedy 
of humours 74-75, gulls 112-117, 
124, 135, 149, 157, 167-168, 187, 
268, as Virgil 311, critical utter- 
ances 312-314. 

Chastel d' Amors, 231. 

Chaucer, 11, 28, 39, 40, 57, 68, 104 
n. 1, 212 n. 1, 222, 223. 

Cheke, Sir John, 23, 56. 

Chester, Charles, 170 n. 2, 174-175, 
176-177. 

Children of the Chapel Stript and 
Whipt, 170 n. 2. 

Chloe, 291-293, etc. 

Chrestoleros, 144. 

Chris ts Teares ouer lerusalem, 108. 

Chute, Anthony, 184. 

Cicero, 6 n. 2, 22 n. 1, 157, 173 n. 1. 

Cloth Breeches and Velvet Hose, 76 

n. 3. 
Cobbler, 94-100. 

Cofbler of Canterburie, 69, 95, 99, 
162 n. 3. 



Index 



319 



Cobler of Queenhithe, 99. 

Coblers Prophesie, 72 n. 1, 95, 96, 

99, 232, 242, 244, 251. 
Cocke Lovelies bote, 28, 278. 
Collectanea Anglo-Poetica, 70 n. 2, 

181 n. 3. 
Collections of the Malone Society, 

82 n. 2, 199. 
Collier, J. P., 17 n. 1, 174, 179, 

235 n. 1 and 4. 
Collins, J. C, 184 n. 1. 
Comedy of Errors, 81. 
Comedy of Humours, 74. 
Common Conditions, 81, 82, 180. 
Complaint of the great want and 

scarcitie of corn ivitJiin this 

realm, 204 n. 1. 
Comus, 242. 
Concordance to the Works of Kyd, 

72 n. 1. 
Contention between Liberality and 

Prodigality, 134 n. 1. 
Corser, Thos., 70 n. 2, 181 n. 3. 
Counterblaste to Tobacco, 127. 
Countercuffe given to Martin 

lunior, 44. 
"Countess of Celant," 46. 
Court of love, 218-233. 
Court of Love, 221, 222, 225, 226, 

230. 233. 
Courthope, W. J., 40. 
Courtier, 19, 22 n. 1, 142, 195, 202, 

205, 221, 231 n. 1, 260, 263, 

275. 
Courtlie Controversie of Cupid's 

Cautels, 246 n. 1. 
Cox, Robert, 39 n. 2. 
Crawford, Charles, 72 n. 1, 91. 
Crispinus, 306-308, etc. 
Crites, 22, 259-263, etc. 
Critical Essays of the Seventeenth 

Century, 2 n. 1, 57 n. 1, 143 n. 1. 
Croft, H. H. S., 122. 
Crowley, Robert, 44, 209 n. 1. 
Cynthia. With Certaine Sonnets, 

245. 
Cynthia's lietJels, 214-218, etc. 



Damon and Pithias, 14, 104, 105. 

Daniel, Samuel, 120-122, 158, 187, 
275. 

Barrel, John, 15, 204 n. 2. 

Davies, Sir John, on the giills 109- 
110 and 112-117, 120, 121, 126, 
128, 144, 150, 180, 187, 190, 200, 

208, 209, 216, 272 n. 2. 
Davies, John of Hereford, 78 n. 1. 
Davison, Francis and Walter, 121. 
Day, John, 11 n. 1. 

Be Arte Honeste Amandi, 219 n. 1. 

Decameron, 100, 168 n. 1. 

Defence of Conny-catching, 130 n. 

1, 272. 
Defence of Poetry, Music, and 

Stage-Plays, 277 n. 1. 
Defense of Poesy, 6 n. 1, 25, 58, 

143. 
Dekker, 1, 3, 15, 95, 99, 169 n. 1, 

199 n. 1, 227, Old Fortunatus 

242-243, 295, as Demetrius 303- 

304, 305, 309. 
Delia, 275. 
Deliro, 210, 212, etc. 
Deloney, Thomas, 85-86, 95, 99, 

204 n. 1. 
Demetrius, 305-306, etc. 
De Oratore, 6 n. 2, 22 n. 1, 173, 

173 n. 1. 
Deschamps. Eustache. 224 n. 2. 
Detraction, 170-172, 276. 277, 305- 

306. 
Detnl is an Ass, 13, 15, 31, 134 n. 

3. 139, 168 n. 1, 204 n. 2, 219, 

221 n. 1. 
Diall of Princes, 198 n. 4. 
Dialogue against the Fever Pesti- 
lence, 42, 70, 86 n. 1, 130 n. 1, 

209, 265. 
Dickenson, John, 68. 287. 

"Did Astrophel Love Stella?" 221 

n. 1. 
Digby, Sir Kenelm, 77. 
Diogenes, 162, 162 n. 3, 163. 
Diogenes in his Singularitie, 162 

n. 1, 280. 



320 



Index 



Dis de la Fontaine d'Amours, 231. 

Discovery of Witchcraft, 11. 

Dit de la Fontaine Amoureuse, 224- 

n. 2. 
Doctor Faustus, 132. 
Documents Relating to the Office of 

the Revels, etc., 12 n. 3, 224 n. 

2, 235 n. 4, 236 n. 1. 
Doime, 19, 68, 109, 144, 189-190, 

260, 279, 291, 307 n. 1. 
Douglas, Gawin, 223. 
Dowden, E., 43 n. 1. 
Doivnfall of Robert Earl of Hunt- 
ington, 96, 146, 215. 249. 
Drayton, 121, 217. 
Droome of Doomes Daye, 70 n. 1. 
Drummond of Hawthornden, 5, 8, 

33, 77, 86 n. 2, 121, 122, 174, 

212, 302, 303, 309. 
Duello, Parody of, 228-229, 233-234. 
Dunbar, William, 229. 
Dutch Courtezan, 14, 105, 134. 
Dyce, A., 169 n. 1, 269 n. 1. 
Dyer, Sir Edward, 11 n. 1. 

Early Popular Poetry, 133 n. 1. 
Eastivard Hoe, 29, 157, 302. 
Echecs Amoureux, 222, 223. 
Echo, 245-246, etc. 
Eckhardt, E., 80, 82 n. 1. 
Education during the Renaissance, 

260 n. 1. 
Einstein, L., 235 n. 3. 
Elizabethan Critical Essays, 2 n. 1, 

6 n. 2, 87 n. 4, 143 n. 1, 258, 280 

n. 1, 311 n. 2. 
Elizabethan Drama, 76 n. 1, 84 

n. 1. 
"Elizabethan Psychology," 43 n. 1. 
Elynour Rummyng, 31, 249. 
Elyot, Sir Thomas, 28, 42, 122, 172. 
Encomium Moriae, 33. 
Endimion, 12 n. 2, 72 n. 1, 87, 237, 

239-240. 
England's Helicon, 245, 275. 
Englischen Maskenspiele, Die, 12 

n. 3, 221 n. 2, 235 n. 1 and 4. 



English Dramatic Poetry, 235 n. 1 

and 4. 
English Patents of Monopoly, 129. 
English Masques, 234 n. 1. 
English Traveller, 101, 132 n. 2. 
Englishmen for my Money, 85, 105. 
Entertainment at Cowdray, 12 n. 3. 
Entertainment at Elvetham, 12 n. 

3, 245. 
Entertainment at Theobalds, 10. 
Envy, 158-162, 286-289, 306, etc. 
Epigrams in the Oldest Cut and 

Newest Fashion. 144. 
Erasmus, 18, 33, 119, 179, 191, 209, 

246 n. 1. 
Essay on Early Italian Courtesy 

Books, 142 n. 2. 
Euphues, 19, 42 n. 2, 59-60, 63, 141 

n. 1 and 3, 142, 200-201, 207, 

212, 237, 280, 281. 
Euphues, his Censure to Philautus, 

63, 221. 
Euphues his Shadoiv, 141 n. 3. 
Evans, H. A., 234 n. 1. 
Evans, Henry, 214 n. 1. 
Every Man in, 107-143, etc. 
Every Man out, 144-213, etc. 
Examination of certayne ordinary 

Complaints, 287. 
Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, 205. 

Fablel dou Dieu d'Amours, 231. 

Fabyan, 76. 

Faerie Queene, 118, 160, 171, 239, 

242, 288-289. 
Fair Quarrel, 101. 
Faire Em, 103. 

Faithfid Shepherdess, 85 n. 1, 242. 
Fallace, 210-212, etc. 
"False Knight," 33, 179. 209. 
Falstaff, 12 n. 2, 88, 98-99, 125-126, 

295, 296-297. 
Familiar Colloquies, 33, 179, 209, 

246 n. 1. 
Famous Victories of Henry V, 87, 

95 n. 1. 
Farewell to Follie, 63, 105 n. 1. 



Index 



321 



Fawne, 30, 103, 186 n. 1. 
Fedele, II, 83 n. 1, 123 n. 1. 
Fenton, Geoffrey, 39 n. 1, 45, on 

humours 46-55, 58, 59, 62, 66 n. 

1, 137 n. 1, 280. 
Feuillerat, A., 12 n. 3, 224 n. 2, 

235 n. 4, 236 n. 1. 
Fig for Momus, 141 n. 1 and 3, 

144, 312. 
Figure of Foure, 258. 
Fischer, R., 142. 
Fleay, F. G., 11 n. 1, 37, 74, 76, 

78, 84, 233 n. 2, 267, 275, 293 

n. 1, 298. 
Fletcher, J. B., 220 n. 1, 221 n. 1. 
Florance et Blarucheflor, 229. 
Florio, John, 111 n. 1. 
Flower and the Leaf. 223, 229. 
Floicers of Epigrams, 116 n. 1. 
Forhonius and Prisceria, 68 n. 1. 
Forest, 121. 
Forster, M., 142 n. 1. 
Fortunate Isles, 11 n. 1, 249. 
Fount of New Fashions, 75. 
Foiir Elements, 208, 311. 
Frampton, John, 127, 209 n. 1. 
Fraternitye of Vacabondes, 28, 69, 

180, 278. 
Fraunce, Abraham, 83 n. 1, 123 

n. 1. 
Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, 76, 

81, 202. 
Friar Rush, 15. 
Fuhvell, Ulpian, 70, 181. 
Fungoso, 205-207. etc. 
Furness, H. H., 87 n. 2, 105. 
Furnivall, F. J., 142 n. 1, 167, 203 

n. 2. 

Gallant, satire on, 117-118, 185-194, 

272-276, 306, etc. 
Gallathea, 237, 242. 
Gascoigne, 12 n. 3, 29, 42 n. 2, 70 

n. 1, 76, 88, 207, 221, 236, 245, 

275, 280. 
Gayley, C. M., 40, 41. 
Gentle Craft, 85-86, 99. 



Gentleman Usher, 103. 

Gesta Grayorum, 163. 

Giflford, W., 14, 137, 139 n. 1, 140, 
141, 143 n. 1, 150, 179, 185, 199, 
206 n. 1, 217, 220, 228, 233, 245, 
279. 

Gipsies Metamorphosed, 282. 

Gismond of Salem, 288. 

Glass of Government, 29, 280. 

Gnapheus, William, 267 n. 2. 

Golden Targe, 229. 

Googe, Barnabe, 139 n. 1. 

Gosson, Stephen, 236. 

Governour, 28, 122. 

Graf, H., 123, 125. 

Grassi, Giacomo di, 233. 

Greene, 11 n. 1, 13, 19, 37, 41, 42 
n. 2, 43, 45, use of humour 62- 
63, 68 n. 2, 70, 76, 88, 136-137, 
141 n. 3, 142, 144, use of induc- 
tion 148, 162 n. 1 and 3, 258, 280 
n. 1, 299. 

Greene's Neios both from Heaven 
and Hell, 184 n. 1, 209 n. 1. 

Greenes Vision, 63, 69, 136-137, / 
212 n. 1. 

Greenough and Kittredge, 43 n. 1. 

Greg, W. W., 246 n. 1. 

Grim, Collier of Croyden, 15, 86, 
287. 

Grobianus, 33, 119. 

Grosart, A. B., 121 n. 1. 

Groundirorke of Conny-catching, 
180, 207 n. 1. 

Guilpin, Edward. 22 n. 1, 68, on 
the gull 110-111, 144, 150, 163, 
166, 170 n. 2, 174, 177, 180, 185, 
187, 190, satire on courtly types 
193-195, 197-199, 208, 216, 260, 
266, 267 n. 2, 271 n. 1, 272, 282. 
288, 295. 

Gull as a type, 108-120, 186-187, 
etc. 

Gullinge Sonnets, 120. 

Guls Borne A)ooTce, 120. 

Hake, Edward, 209 n. 1, 291. 



322 



Index 



Hakhiyt, 128. 

Hall, Joseph, 19, 26, 101 n. 1, 130 
n. 1, 144, 150, 153, 156, 190, 206, 
216, 266-267, 288, 291. 
Harington, Sir John, 42 n. 2, 174, 

176-177, 258, 280 n. 1. 
Hariot, Thomas, 128. 
Harman, Thomas, 69, 133. 
Harriots, M., 313. 
Harris, M. A., 69 n. 1. 
Harsnet, Samuel, 204 n. 2. 
Hart, H. C, 2 n. 2, 60, 94, 101, 139 
n. 1, 168-169, 170 n. 2, 174, 176 
n. 1, 197 n. 1, 198 n. 2 and 3, 
267, 268, 293 n. 1. 
Harvey, Gabriel, 11 n. 1, use of 
humour 60-62, 66 n. 1, 87 n. 3. 
88 n. 1, 94, 126-127, 173 n. 2, 
175, 185, 188-189, 198 n. 3, 206. 
209 n. 1, 267, 290, 307. 
Haue with you to Saffron-ivalden, 
86 n. 1, 126-127, 184, 185, 189, 
267, 290. 
Hazlitt, W. C, 133 n. 1. 
Hector of Germanie, 103. 
Hedon, 272-276, 306, etc. 
Heinsius, Daniel, 6 n. 1, 7 n. 3. 
Hekatompathia, 191, 245. 
/ Henry IV, 88, 98, 114. 
77 Henry IV, 126, 178 n. 1, 267 n. 

1, 296, 298. 
Hero and Leander, 14. 
Herrick, 24. 

Highminded man, 22 n. 1, 261-263. 
Histoires Tragiques, 46-50, 52 n. 1. 
History of Eng. Dram. Lit., 11 n. 
1, 84 n. 1, 88 n. 1, 162 n. 1, 246 
n. 1. 
History of English Poetry, 40. 
Histriomastix, 14, 165, 198 n. 4, 
206. 208, 216, 242, 268, 291 n. 1, 
298-299, 303. 
Hoby, Sir Thomas, 202, 205. 
Holme, J. W., 142 n. 2. 
Horace, 18, 25, 31, 285, 305, 306 

n. 2, 309. 
Horace of Poetaster, 308-311, etc. 



Hospital d'Amours, 224 n. 2. 

How a Man May Choose a Good 

Wife from, a Bad, 139. 
How the Wyse Man Taught hys 

Sone, 142. 
Humorous Day's Mirth, 37, 67, 74- 

75, 112-117, 127 n. 2, 135, 163, 

167-168, 268, 269 n. 2. 
Humorous Lieutenant, 103. 
Humour out of Breath, 11 n. 1. 
Hye Way to the Spyttel Hous, 28, 

69, 108, 133. 

Idea, 217. 

If this be not a Good Play, 15. 

Influence of Beaumont and, Fletcher 

on Shakespeare, 144 n. 2. 
Informers, 299-303. 
Institutiones Oratoriae, 7 n. 3 
Irish Huhhul), 179. 
Isle of Dogs, 301-303. 
Italian Renaissance in England, 

235 n. 3. 

Jack Drum's Entertainment, 186 n. 

1, 217, 293. 
Jack Juggler, 71. 
James IV, 72 n. 1, 101, 105, 132, 

142 n. 1, 148, 163, 183-184, 206, 

280, 291. 
Jester, 61, 62 n. 1, 172-177, 276-277, 

305-306. 
Jests of Peele, 134, 180 n. 1, 192 

n. 1. 
Jeu parti, 229-230. 
John a Kent and John a Cumber, 

12 n. 2, 81, 83. 
Johnson, W. S., 15. 
Jones, Inigo, 77, 78, 79. 
Jonsonus Virbius, 176 n. 1. 
Joy full newes, 127, 209 n. 1. 
Julius and Hyppolita, 104. 
Julius Caesar, 10, 99, 109 n. 1, 163, 

263. 
Juniper, 94-100, etc. 
Juvenal, 25, 31, 151, 152, 306 
n. 2. 



Index 



323 



Kendall, Timothy, 116 n. 1. 

Kerton, H., 69, 167 n. 1. 

King James, 127. 

King John, 137-138. 

Kitely, 136-138, etc. 

Knack to Know a Knave, 99, 130 

n. 1, 132-133, 203. 
Knight of the Burning Pestle, 148. 
Knightes Tale, 104 n. 1, 223. 
Koeppel, E., 59 n. 1, 93 n. 1, 207. 
Kyd, 72 n. 1, 126, 127, 141, 146, 

288, 297, 298. 

Laing, D., 277 n. 1. 

Laio Tricks, 105 n. 1. 

Lawyers, Satire on, 290-291. 

Lay du Desert d'Amours, 224 n. 2. 

Lenten Stuffe, 11 n. 1, 14, 91, 127 
n. 3, 206, 273, 275, 291, 300 301. 

Letting of Humour's Blood in the 
Head Vein, 150 n. 1. 

Lexiphanes, 307. 

Life and Writings of G. Gascoigne, 
70 n. 1. 

"Life of Antony," 162 n. 1. 

Like Will to Like, 132 n. 2. 

Lindesay, 251. 

Literary Criticis7n in the Renais- 
sance, 2 n. 1, 5, 45. 

Locrine, 95, 96-98, 99. 

Lodge, 19, 28, 37, 41, 42 n. 2. 45. 
58, 59, character sketch 67-68, 
69, 71, 72, 75, 109, 130 n. 1, 134 
n. 4, 138, 140, 141 n. 1 and 3, 
144, 150, 162 n. 1. 171, 180, 182- 
183, 184, 209, 221, 265-266, 275, 
277, 278 n. 1, 280, 287, 306 n. 1, 
312. 

Long, P. W., 239 n. 1. 240 n. 1. 

Longer thou Livest, 41 n. 2, 141 n. 
1, 208, 251, 278. 

Longinus, 6 n. 1. 

Look About You, 14, 84-85, 112 n. 
1, 134. 

Lorris, Guillaume de, 224. 

Lotharius, 69, 167 n. 1. 



Love's Labour's Lost, 14, 83, 87, 
98, 154 n. 1, 232 n. 2, 258, 275, 
281, 298. 

Love's Metamorphosis, 72 n. 1, 238, 
240. 

Love's Welcome at Welbeck, 77, 79. 

Lucian, 18, 44, 157, 245, 307. 

Lustige Person im alteren eng- 
lischen Drama, 80, 82 n. 1. 

Lydgate, 219 n. 1, 222, 223, 224, 
278. 

Lyly, 27, 29, 37, 41, 42, 42 n. 2, 
45, use of humour in fiction 59- 
60, 62, 63, 70, use of humour in 
plays 72-74, 105, 141 n. 1, 142, 
162 n. 1 and 3, 172, 200-201, 202, 
210-211, 218, 221, 236, mytholog- 
ical plays 237-242, 258, 279, 280, 
281. 

Macbeth, 10. 

Machiavelli, 15. 

Macilente, 158-169, etc. 

Macropedius, George, 267 n. 2. 

Magnetic Lady, 9, 29, 31, 43, 76, 77. 

Magnificence, 28, 172, 187, 206, 249- 
253, 258. 

Maid's Metamorphosis, 245. 

Malcontent, 162-166, etc. 

Malcontent, 105 n. 1, 157, 164. 

Mallory, H. S., 284-285, 291 n. 1, 
293 n. 1, 298 n. 1, 311. 

Mankind, 96. 

Manly, J. M., 38 n. 1. 

Margarite of America. 68 n. 1. 141 
n. 3, 221. 

Marlowe, 14, 41, 74. 297. 

Marston, 1, 11 n. 1, 17, 19, 22 n. 
1, 29, 84 n. 1, 120, 144, 149, 150- 
151, kinship to Asper as a satir- 
ist 152-153 and 155-157, 163, 164, 
165, 170 n. 2, 185, treatment of 
the gallant 190-193 and 195-196, 
217, 245 n. 1, 260, 272, 275, 288, 
291, 298, as Crispinus 303-305 
and 307-308. 



324 



Index 



Martin-Marprelate, 26, 44 n. 1. 
Masque of Christmas, 12, 114, 132 

n. 2. 
Masque of Floivers, 234 n. 1. 
Masque of Hymen, 10. 
Masque of Queens, 10-11, 177. 
Masque of the Knights of the Hel- 
met, 163. 
Mayne, Jasper, 176 n. 1. 
Mayor of Queenhorough, 146. 
McKerrow, R. B., 42 n. 2, 44 n. 1, 

179, 302 n. 1. 
Medwell, Henry, 141, 161-162, 187. 
Menaechmi, 81. 
Menaphon, 103. 
Mercator, 103. 
Merchant of Venice, 88, 102, 165, 

281. 
Merchant's Tale, 212 n. 1. 
Meres, Francis, 91. 
Merie Tales of Skelton, 129. 
Merry Devil of Edmonton, 100. 
Merry Wives of Windsor, 12 n. 2, 

35, 100, 154 n. 1, 296, 298. 
Mery, Huon de, 229. 
Mery Tales and Quicke Anstveres, 

129. 
Messe des Oisiaus, 231. 
Metamorphosis of Pygmalion's 

Image and Certain Satires, 144, 

150-151, 163, 190-193, 245 n. 1, 

260, 265. 
Micro-Cynicon, 144, 153, 206, 288. 
Midas, 72-73, 102, 234 n. 1, 237, 

240-241, 279. 
Middleton, 1, 76, 144, 152, 205. 
Midsummer Night's Dream, 14, 81, 

83, 203, 298. 
Miles Gloriosus, 123, 125. 
Miles gloriosus as a type, 122-130. 
Mingo, 178 n. 1. 
Minneiurg. Die, 225. 
Mirror of Mans lyfe, 69, 167 n. 1. 
Misogonus, 86 n. 1. 
Moffat, Thomas, 144 n. 1. 
Monsieur Thomas, 105. 



More, Sir Thomas, 18, 116 n. 1, 

139, 173. 
Morosus, 162, 162 n. 3. 
Mother Bonihie, 84, 117 n. 1. 
Mourning Garment, 141 n. 3, 221. 
Mucedorus, 81, 82, 132 n. 2, 147 n. 

1, 288. 
Much Ado, 87 n. 2, 105, 154 n. 1, 

301 n. 1. 
Munday. 82 n. 2, 90-91, 124, 146, 

148, 170 n. 2, 215 n. 1. 

Narcissus, 224, etc. 

Narcissus (Academic), 14, 224 n. 2. 

Narcissiis (1572), 224 n. 2, 236. 

Nashe, 11 n. 1, 14, 19, 37, 41, 42 
n. 2, 43, 44, 45, 58-59, 61, 62, 
use of humour 63-67, 71, 72, 74, 
75, 91, 108, 118, 126-127, 127 n. 
3, 129, 130 n. 1, 144, use of the 
induction 147-148, 149, 150, 153 
n. 1, 155, 163, 170 n. 2, on scur- 
rilous jesting 174-177, on drink- 
ing customs 178-179, 180. 183, 
184, 185, the upstart 186 and 
188-189, 192 n. 1. 197 n. 1, 200, 
203 n. 1, 205, 206, 209 n. 1, 210, 
212, 215, 217, 267, picture of the 
gallant 273-274, 275, 278 n. 1, 
280, 281, 282, 291, 292, 294, on 
informers 300-303, 307, 311 n. 2, 
312, defence of his work, 314-315. 

Nature, 141, 161-162, 187, 251, 253. 

Neff, Marietta, 233 n. 2. 

Neilson, G., 200 n. 1. 

Neilson, W. A., 222, 224 n. 1 and 2, 
226 n. 1, 231, 232, 232 n. 3. 

Never too Late, 88. 

Neiv English Dictionary, 38, 39, 
108, 109. 

Neiv Inn, 9, 31, 199, 220, 221 n. 1, 
225 n. 1. 

Newes from Jack Begger under the 
Bushe, 204 n. 1, 209 n. 1. 

Newes out of Powles Churchyarde, 
209 n. 1, 291. 



Index 



325 



"News" in titles, 209 n. 1. 
'Nicomachean Ethics, 28, 170 n. 3, 

172, 246-248. 
Nigramansir, 269 n. 1. 
No WMppinge, nor trippinge: but a 

kinde friendly Snippinge, 18. 
Nobody and Somebody, 11. 
Northbrooke, John, 141 n. 1. 

Odyssey, 11 n. 1. 

Of Poets and Poesy, 121. 

Old Fortunatus, 242-243, 280. 

Old Law, 233-234. 

Old Wives' Tale, 94, 147, 245. 

One and Thirty Epigrams, 44, 209 

n. 1. 
"Origin of the Seventeenth Century 

Idea of Humours," 69 n. 1. 
Origins and Sources of the Court 

of Love, 222-223, 224 n. 1 and 2, 

226 n. 1, 229, 231, 232. 
Orlando Furioso (Greene), 72 n. 1, 

258, 280 n. 1. 
Ovid, 220. 
Ovid of Poetaster, 290-291, 293-294, 

etc. 
Ovid's Banquet of Sense, 313-314. 

Page of Plymouth, 10. 

Painter, William, 48-50, 162 n. 1. 

Palace of Pleasure, 48-50, 162 n. 1. 

Palice of Honour, 223. 

Palladis Tamia, 91. 

Paradoxes of Defence, 227 n. 1. 

Parnassus Plays, 118, 119, 169 n. 

1, 178 n. 1, 186. 
Pasqualigo, Luigi, 83 n. 1, 123 n. 1. 
Pasquils Jests, 120. 
Pastoral Poetry, 246 n. 1. 
Patient Grissell (Dekker), 105 n. 

1, 119, 120, 169 n. 1, 186, 199 

n. 1. 
Patient Grissell (Phillip), 142 n. 1. 
Pattern of Painful Adventures, 76. 
Pedantius, 94. 

Peele, 147. 180 n. 1, 207, 236-237. 
Pell, John, 174. 



Penates, 10, 114. 

Penelope's Weh, 63. 

Penniman, J. H., 71, 120, 139 n. 1, 

143 n. 1, 183 n. 1, 266 n. 2, 267, 

272 n. 2, 277, 306 n. 2. 
Petite Pallace of Pettie his pleas- 
ure, 207. 
Philargyrie of greate Britayne, 269 

n. 1. 
Philaster, 100. 
Phillip, John, 142 n. 1. 
Philomela, 63. 
Phoenix Nest, 276. 
Pierce Penilesse, 37, 64, 66, 71, 86 

n. 1, 118, 144, 150, 163, 165, 174- 

177, 178, 188, 205, 210, 280, 281, 

292, 301, 312, 314-315. 
Pierces Supererogation, 11 n. 1, 88 

n. 1. 
Piers the Plowman, 29, 159-160, 

161 n. 1. 
Pinner of Wakefield, 72 n. 1, 95, 

99, 100. 
Planetomachia, 42 n. 2, 62, 73, 162 

n. 3. 
Plato, 5, 28, 40, 157, 220. 
Platonic love, 221 n. 1. 
Plautus, 18, 23, 90, 92, 93, 102, 103, 

107, 204, 206 n. 1. 
Players, Satire on, 297-299. 
Plays of our Forefathers, 40. 
Pleasant Conceites of Old Hobson, 

129. 
Plutarch, 162 n. 1. 
Poetaster, 284-316, etc. 
Poetical Rapsody, 121. 
Political, Religious, and Love 

Poems, 38 n. 1. 
Practise (Saviolo). 233. 
"Praise of Nothing," 11 n. 1. 
Price, W. H., 129. 
Princely Pleasures at Kenilworth 

Castle, 12 n. 3. 
Proctor, Thos., 287. 
Promos and Cassandra, 143, 216. 
Puntarvolo, 194-200, 264-265, etc. 
Puttenham, 122. 



326 



Index 



Quartern of Knaves, 30, 278. 
Queene Elizahethes Achademy, 142 

n; 1. 
Quellen-Studien zu den Dramen 

Ben Jonson's, etc., 93 n. 1. 
Quia Amore Langueo, 38 n. 1. 
Quintilian, 7 n. 3, 122. 
Quip for an Upstart Courtier, 11 

n. 1, 76, 86 n. 1, 142, 144, 188, 

203, 280 n. 1, 299. 

Rabelais, 42, 185. 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 197 n. 1. 

Raleigh, W., 23 n. 1, 202 n. I, 

205. 
Rankins, William, 144, 162 n. 3. 
Rare Triumphs of Love and For- 
tune, 236, 237. 
Rarest Books, 17 n. 1. 
Recorde, Robert, 42. 
Repentance of Robert Greene, 163. 
Reson and Sensuallyte, 219 n. 1, 

222, 223, 224, 226. 
Respuhlica, 102, 131, 251 
Return from Parnassus, Part I, 

118, 119, 178 n. 1, 186. 
Returne of Pasquil, 44, 153 n. 1, 

183, 212. 
Riche, Barnabe, 179. 
Rise of Formal Satire in England, 

under Classical Influence, 17 n. 

1, 204 n. 1. 
Robert 11, King of Scots, 10. 
Roman de la Poire, 229. 
Roman de la Rose, 224, 230, 231, 

232, 233. 
Romaricimontis Concilium, 226. 
Romaunt of the Rose, 222, 226, 232 

n. 1. 
Romeo and Juliet, 279, 290. 
Rosalind, 141 n. 3. 
Rossetti, W. M., 142 n. 2. 
Routh, H. v., 33 n. 1. 
Rowlands, Samuel, 68, 150 n. 1. 
Royal Exchange, 258. 
Roydon, Matthew, 313. 



Sad Shepherd, 9, 24, 31, 77. 

Salviati, Lionardo, 45. 

Sapho and, Phao. 209, 232, 236 n. 2, 

237. 241-242. 
Satirist, Treatment of, 148-157, 

166, 170, 260, 308-310, etc. 
Satiromastix, 3, 87, 120, 157, 169 

n. 1, 227, 259, 295, 302, 304, 309. 
Satyr, 11. 

Satyre of Three Estates, 251. 
Saviolina, 200-202, etc. 
Saviolo, Vincentio, 233. 
Schelling, F. E., 70 n. 1, 76, 84. 
Schmidt, A., 74. 

Scholemaster, 6 n. 2, 7 n. 1, 23 n. 1. 
School of Shakspere, 11 n. 1, 76 

n. 2. 
Scogan and Skelton, 249. 
Scot, Reginald, 11. 
Scott, M. A., 202 n. 1, 205 n. 1. 
Scourge of Villainy, 144, 152-153, 

153 n. 2, 155-157, 170 n. 2, 191, 

193, 198 n. 2, 217, 288, 291. 
Seaven Satyres, 144, 162 n. 3. 
Sejanus, 10, 154 n. 1, 284. 
Selimus, 82. 
Seneca, 23. 

Shadow of Night, 313-314. 
Shakespeare, 1, 3, 13. 24, 27, 35, 

40, 57, 81, 98, 99. 137-138, 139, 

147, 154. 164, 198 n. 4, 202 n. 1, 

297, 310-311. 
Shakespeare-Lexicon, 74. 
Shift. 180-184, etc. 
Ship of Fools, 28, 30, 33, 69. 130 

n. 1, 203 n. 1. 
Shoemaker's Holiday, 95, 99, 296. 
Sidney, Lady Mary, 50. 
Sidney, Sir Philip, 5, 6 n. 1, 18- 

19, 25, 42 n. 2, on character 

treatment 57-59, 143, 158, 217, 

221 n. 1, 246. 
Silent Woman, 5, 31, 81. 119. 121, 

132 n. 2, 154 n. 1, 184 n. 3, 206 

n. 1, 219, 221 n. 1, 284, 292. 
Silver. George, 227 n. 1. 



Index 



327 



Simpson, R., 7 n. 3, 11 n. 1, 76 n. 

2, 165, 185. 
Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes, 180, 

251. 
Sir Gyles Goosecappe, 132 n. 2, 169 

n. 1. 
Sir John Oldcastle, 100, 296. 
Sir Thomas More, 13, 41 n. 1, 74, 

101, 108, 109, 139, 202. 
Skelton, 25, 28, 31, 146, 172, 187, 
206, Magnificence 249-253, 269 
n. 1. 
Skialetheia, 22 n. 1, 68, 110-111, 
144, 163, 166, 170 n. 2, 174, 193- 
195, 206, 216, 260, 266, 267 n. 2, 
271 n. 1, 282, 287, 295. 
Small, R. A., 76, 78, 79, 121 n. 1, 
174 n. 2, 205, 276 n. 1, 279, 284, 
295, 304. 
Smith, G. Gregory, 2 n. 1, 6 n. 2, 
87 n. 4, 143 n. 1, 258, 280 n. 1, 
311 u. 2. 
Smith, Winifred, 124 n. 1, 132 n. 3. 
Social England, 235 n. 2. 
Sogliardo, 207-209, etc. 
Soliman and Perseda, 72 n. 1, 117, 

123, 124-125, 129, 146. 
Sordido, 202-205, etc. 
Spanish Tragedy, 72 n. 1. 126, 127, 

141, 146, 288, 297, 298. 
Speeches Delivered to her Majesty 

at Bisham, 12 n. 3. 
Speght, Thomas, 222. 
Spenser, 19, 41, 60, 118, 160, 161 
n. 1, 171. 221 n. 1. 239, 242, 288. 
Spingarn, J. E., 2, 5. 6 n. 1, 7 n. 
3, 45, 55, 57 n. 1, 143 n. 1 and 2. 
Stafford, William, 287. 
Stage-Quarrel, 76, 78, 79, 121 n. 1, 
174 n. 2, 205, 276 n. 1, 279, 284, 
295, 304. 
Staple of News, 5, 9, 29, 77, 121, 

148, 207. 
Stoll, E. E., 99 n. 1. 
Stow, John, 199-200, 222. 
Strange Newes, 44-45, 129, 209 n. 
1, 217. 



Stubbes, Philip, 42 n. 2, 86 n. 1, 
101, 141 n. 1, 142 n. 2, on dress 
167, 203, 204, 280 n. 1, 291. 

Studies in Jonson's Comedy, 6 n. 1. 

Stukeley, Thomas, 130. 

Summer's Last Will and Testa- 
ment, 147, 148, 154, 155, 178- 
179, 216, 242, 282. 

Supposes, 76, 86. 

Tale of a Tub, 76-89, etc. 
Tamburlaine, 297. 
Taming of a Shreiv, 72 n. 1, 147. 
Taming of the Shreio, 105, 132 n, 

2, 147. 
Tarlton's Netcs out of Purgatory,. 

100, 209 n. 1. 
Tears of Fancie, 245. 
Ten Commandments, 141 n. 1. 
Tennant, G. B., 199, 220. 
Terrors of the Night, 65-66, 68, 71, 

108, 109, 188, 200. 
Theophrasti Characteres Ethici, 71. 
Theophrastus, 69 n. 1, 71, 130 n. 1. 
Thibaut, 229. 

Thomas Deloney, etc., 204 n. 1. 
Thorns, W. J.. 38. 
Thorndike, A. H., 144 n. 2, 154 n. 1. 
Three Ladies of London, 11 n. 1, 

131, 209. 
Three Lords and Three Ladies of 
London, 11 n. 1, 72 n. 1, 131, 
235, 249, 253-256. 
Thynne. William, 222. 
Timber, 5. requisites of the poet 

6-7, 22 n. 1, 311 n. 2. 
Timon, 162. 
Timon, 168-169, 185, 209, 268-272, 

279, 292. 
Tornoiement d'Antechrist, 229. 
Tragicall Discourses, 39 n. 1, 46-55, 

137 n. 1, 280. 
Traill, H. D., 235 n. 2. 
Trattato della Poetica, 45. 
Traveler, 101-102, 265-267, etc. 
Treatise against Dancing, 141 n. 1. 
Trial by Combat, 200 n. 1. 



338 



Index 



Trial for Treasure, 41 n. 1. 

Triggs, O. L., 279 n. 1. 

Triumph of Trueth, 287. 

Troilus and Cressida, 154 n. 1. 

True Arte of Defence, 233. 

True Tragedy of Richard III, 215. 

Tucea, 99, 294-297, etc. 

Twelfth Night, 15, 154 n. 1. 

Two Angry Women of Abington, 

84, 85, 135 n. 1, 142. 
Two Gentlemen of Verona, 103-104, 

281. 
Tico Italian Gentlemen, 72 n. 1, 

kinship to Tale of a Tub 82-83, 

117, treatment of braggart 123- 

124, 124 n. 2, 129. 

Unfortunate Traveller, 108. 
Upton, J., 206 n. 1. 

Variorum Shalcespeare, 87 n. 2, 

105. 
Vetus Comocdia, 7, 212. 
Vicary, Thomas, 42, 287. 
Victoria, 83 n. 1, 123 n. 1. 
Virgidemiarum, 101 n. 1, 130 n. 1, 

144, 190, 267, 288, 291. 
Virgil, 23, 310. 

Virgil of Poetaster, 310-311, etc. 
Virtuous Octavia, 287. 
Vitruvius, 78. 
Vitry, Jacques de, 205. 
Vives, Johannes Ludoviciis, 7 n. 3. 
Volpone, 9, 31, 154 n. 1. 175 n. 1, 

193, 284, 292. 

Wager, William, 41 n. 2, 141 n. 1, 

251, 278. 
War of the Theatres, 143 n. 1, 266 

n. 2, 272 n. 2. 306 n. 2. 
Ward, A. W., 11 n. 1, 84 n. 1, 88 

n. 1, 162 n. 1, 246 n. 1. 
Warning for Fair Women, 143, 146, 

158, 215, 216. 



Warton. Thomas, 269 n. 1. 
Watson, Thomas, 191, 245, 280 n. 1. 
Webster, 1. 
Weever, John, 144. 
Welldon, J. E. C, 170 n. 3. 
Whalley, P., 117 n. 1, 141, 179. 
What you Will, 304. 
Whetstone, George, 143, 158. 216. 
WJiipjiing of the Satyre, 17. 
Wild Goose Chase, 101, 105. 
Wilson, Robert, 131, 249, 253-256. 
Wilson, Thomas, 6 n. 1, 7 n. 3, 23, 

art of characterization 56-57, 88 

n. 1, 98, 147 n. 3, on jesting 

172-173, 198 n. 1. 
Wily Beguiled, 84, 88, 95, 98, 99. 

109, 117 n. 2, 147, 162 n. 2, 

279. 
Wi7ite.r's Tale, 13. 
Wisdom of Doctor Dodipoll. 103, 

109 n. 1. 
Witch of Edmonton, 165 n. 1. 
Wit of Wit, 11 n. 1. 
Wits Miserie. 28, 37, 67-68, 71. 109, 

130 n. 1, 134 n. 4, 138, 139 n. 1. 

144, 150, 171, 182-183, 183 n. 1, 

209, 265-266, 275, 277, 287, 306 

n. 1. 
Wits Trenchmour, 68, 141 n. 3. 
Witty woman, 105, 200-202, 280- 

281. 
Woman in the Moon, 37, 72, 73-74, 

162 n. 3, 207, 210-211, 237, 238, 

240. 
Woman is a Weathercock, 132 n. 2. 
Woodbridge, Elizabeth, 6 n. 1. 
Woodward, W. H., 260 n. 1. 
Words and their Ways, 43 n. 1. 
Worlde of Wordes, 111 n. 1. 
Wounds of Civil War, 245. 
Wyt and Science, 208, 307 n. 1. 311. 

Zodiacke, 139 n. 1. 







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